SOUL -RE TURN 



FRED MAX 



ml 



HI I INI If 





Class B. 

Book._ 






[ 



Copyright N° 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Soul-Science Series — I 



SOUL-RETURN 



WRITTEN BY 



KRED MAX 



BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A. 

E. H. BACON & COMPANY 

8 BEACON STREET 
I9O4 









Copyright, iqoj, 

By E. H. Bacon & Co., 

Boston, Mass. 



J- k I 






M 



Preface 

AN has begun to investigate the Unknown, 
being urged to do so by new Forces that 
stamp his future after the curtain is down, 
the Play -out and the actors gone home. 
He asks, Where is this Home ? Shall I be lost there 
in endless sleep-and-nothing, or be active again by 
word and deed ? 

These questions, and many others, are answered in 
this book, and the new Forces presented and ex- 
plained. They acquaint the reader with his occupa- 
tion when the Play is out ; with his future state in 
general, and with his Self. 

FRED MAX. 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A., 
September i, 1903. 



Table of Contents 



PAGE 

Preface 2 

Introductory Remarks 9 

I. The Soul 19 

II. The Soul Continued 31 

III. Soul-Return 53 

IV. Psychic Fraud 109 

V. Physical Souls 122 

VI. Human Character 131 

VII. Instruction and Currents ..... 144 

VIII. Imagination 180 

IX. The Divine Spheres 188 

X. Other Worlds 197 

XL Harmonies I. 204 

XII. Conclusion 214 

XIII. Questions and Answers 222 

Index 269 



I ntroductory Remarks 

THIS is a Primer of Soul-Science, not a Man- 
ual. It demonstrates that after death the 
soul continues living ; that it may return ; 
and that man is a soul. 
No task can be more difficult. It touches facts and 
phenomena heretofore considered inaccessible ; it in- 
vites the scorn of the skeptic, the hatred of the 
materialist, the irony of the crowd. This Primer 
contains the kind of knowledge every one should 
possess and digest ; and the day of its publication has 
come. The decay of all self-imposed authority ; the 
growing interest of the public in soul matters, and 
the triumphs of science such as the telegraph and tel- 
ephone render the task promising and opportune. It 
centres in the instruction imparted by a few wise 
souls from the so-called* " Other Side," which is the 
only side competent and able to reveal the truth re- 
garding the soul. 

The believer in a Hereafter and the investigator 
that wishes to "have things explained" are interested 
in this book. He that thinks earth-life is the begin- 
ning and end of everything is not. Nor is he who 
celebrates the idea that the Unknown exists separate 

9 



io Soul-Return 



and apart from the Known ; or he that places the 
Unknown on the other side of an impassable chasm. 
Such ideas are wrong, as the facts of the Known are 
in constant touch with the facts of the Unknown, and 
no line runs or can be drawn between the two do- 
mains of nature. To illustrate : A stone falls when 
left unsupported ; the materialized form of a return- 
ing soul vanishes when left unsupported. In the case 
of the stone the support would be a concrete object ; 
in that of the materialized human form, a certain 
class of supporting currents. The descent of the 
stone is called a physical fact ; that of the form a 
psychic fact ; but this difference in name does not 
render the one better than the other. Nobody can 
point out where the physical ends and where the 
psychic begins. The propagation of a thought-wave; 
or the transmission of a telegram over a wire, has 
been classified among the psychic facts ; but each be- 
longs to both the psychic and the physical ; the ques- 
tion is purely one of degree. Even the fall of a 
stone becomes a psychic event when we consider it 
the result of a peculiar condition of the ether sur- 
rounding the stone. A similar cause underlies the 
descent of the materialized form ; which illustrates 
that the Known and the Unknown are linked to one - 
another, .All facts, of whatever class or kind they 
may be, are connected together more or less directly. 
When investigated methodically, and stripped of 
all speculation, traditions and brain-phantasms, the 
Unknown transcends the uncertainty of guesswork, 



Introductory Remarks n 

and appears real. But in the present crude, unsatis- 
factory condition of soul-science much must be am- 
plified by the instruction of those that know. Now 
those that know are not the learned brains of earth, 
whose tools are insufficient for the acquisition of such 
knowledge ; but beings that occupy higher planes of 
life. Their instruction is contained in this volume. 
It should not be called dogmatic or a dogma. It 
constitutes as direct and plain. a fact of nature as is 
the song of a bird. No other means for unfolding 
the vast Unknown exists at present, that would con- 
vince man not that he has but that he is a soul. 

The temporary return of a soul into the material 
plane of life is a process of nature now no longer un- 
known or problematical. It is doubted only by the 
ignorant, and by those that feel more comfortable in 
the thought that soul-return is an impossibility. Cer- 
tain professionals, conscious of their inability to prove 
it a myth, have declared that to believe in the return 
of departed souls is wicked ; and that its investigators 
are insane. Such notions will not deter the seeker 
after truth. He knows that abuse is lavished upon 
all who maintain anything happening to be contrary 
to public opinion ; and that a generation may believe 
impossible or improbable the thing the next gener- 
ation worships as a fact. If a person inhabiting a 
planet from which stars were never seen should an- 
nounce that the denizens of another planet called the 
Earth can behold stars that are fifty thousand million 
miles and more distant from them, the statement 



12 Soul-Return 



would be ridiculed by the scientists on that globe ; 
the pious would ostracize the informant ; the police 
take his photograph. All this because he advances 
views unexpected, novel and contrary to common ex- 
perience. A generation ago the emission of music 
from a rotating indented disk tickled by a nail, or the 
possibility of persons conversing with each other over 
a distance of a thousand miles would have been 
laughed at and decried as an insane dream. To-day 
either is an admitted fact. Now, if the human soul 
exists, it belongs to nature, and nothing is more nat- 
ural than for it to obey certain laws and processes, as 
every entity is compelled to obey certain laws and 
processes. Soul-return is, even as a presumption, 
more natural than the assumption that the soul should 
perish with the body, especially since in nature noth- 
ing perishes. And if it does not perish, what is to 
hinder it from returning ? And why should the im- 
partial investigation of these problems be wicked, its 
records dreamy, its votaries crazy ? 

One of the things inherent in every soul is the 
power of condensing, that is, the power of con- 
densing the substance composing the soul, viz., 
its ether. The term condensing or condensation 
stands here for the lack of a more appropriate one. 
It is a species of condensation different from that 
which operates on matter such as, e. g., steam or 
carbonic-acid gas when these are condensed into the 
liquid state by the application of cold or pressure or 



Introductory Remarks 13 

both combined. Disembodied souls condense ether 
by means of certain classes of currents which are not 
yet verified by science. These currents the soul con- 
trols as soon as practicable after its flesh-and-bone 
body is laid away. All psychic facts and phenomena ; 
all manifestations of, or communications from, the so- 
called Unknown, or the " Other Side," are based upon 
the condensing power of the soul. 

The power of condensing ether is not confined to 
the disembodied ; it is exercised also by mortals. To 
illustrate : Currents or rays of light from external 
objects strike the retina and form a picture upon it 
which is ether condensed. Vision is based upon soul- 
power, viz., the power of condensing ether currents 
upon the retina. 

A common proof of soul-return is furnished by 
clairvoyant persons. They are specially endowed by 
nature, able to see ether entities under certain con- 
ditions prevailing at the time. In order that a 
clairvoyant may see a soul, the soul must first con- 
dense sufficiently to form an impression or picture 
upon the retina of his soul-eye. 

A less common proof is furnished by Etherealiza- 
tion, which consists in a departed soul's appearing 
partly condensed or materialized, i. e., in a visible, 
transparent, ethereal form. 

A no longer rare proof of soul-return is afforded 
by the phenomenon of Materialization. A material- 
ized soul resides in a temporary, opaque, artificial 



14 Soul-Return 



human body, which for the sake of brevity is often 
called a Form. It lasts only a brief time ; it utters 
human speech ; it moves about ; it can depress a 
scale, and its weight may be ascertained. 

These three degrees of soul condensation, or soul-re- 
turn, do not occur as phantasms, dreams or delusions, 
but as facts. They are facts. To denounce either of 
them as fraud or the work of Satan is neither prudent 
nor wise, for thousands of critical investigators are 
convinced of their genuine, objective, real existence. 

Some persons call soul-return wonderful. This 
prompts the skeptic to belittle its study. In nature 
everything is wonderful, in a sense ; but soul-return is 
not more wonderful than many other phenomena of 
nature, such as, e. g., the ordinary phenomena of vision. 
A person, for example, sees a violet ribbon. Its rays, 
i. e., ether currents, consist of waves, each of which, 
according to the measurements of science, is about 
one seventy-thousandth of an inch long; and seven 
hundred and sixty-three trillions of them enter the 
observer's eye during a second of time ! If an object 
issues rays whose waves are of a different size than the 
preceding, the color of the object is different. Waves 
one thirty-thousandth of an inch long, for example, 
produce the color of red ; that is, the object they ema- 
nate from is seen as being red. Phenomena of vision 
are certainly no less wonderful than returning souls. 

Investigation and experimentation concerning the 
human soul must overcome manifold difficulties not 



Introductory Remarks 15 

existing in the analysis of concrete matter, such as 
cumulative conditions and necessities that are not 
needed in the laboratory. The production of a 
single form in the aura of a materialized medium, for 
example, requires as many as a dozen more or less 
perfect conditions, whereas physical or chemical experi- 
ments or phenomena require but a few conditions. 

Besides, the conditions underlying soul-phenomena 
vary constantly in quantity. For example, in all 
climes at all times under all circumstances and condi- 
tions an unsupported stone falls ; but the actions of a 
soul may change from minute to minute. The reason 
is, a soul is not a stone. A piece of lead always 
melts when exposed to strong heat, while the action 
of a cat on a fence or a squirrel in a tree cannot be 
foretold, cats and squirrels not being pieces of lead. 
Moreover, the investigator must be in a receptive con- 
dition of mind ; that is, his brain-currents must be 
subdued, or confined within a limited degree of 
energy, else they will polarize and in polarizing ob- 
struct the soul-currents. For in nature the coarser 
— in the present illustration the brain-currents — 
often obstructs and neutralizes the more refined. 
Other existing requirements will be obtained in 
time ; at present they lend an air of reasonable- 
ness to the assertion of the beer-and-alcohol crowd, 
that of the disembodied soul nothing can be known, 
and that at all events soul-science has no raison d'etre. 

Most Primers are accused of being unsystematic. 



1 6 Soul-Return 



The charge is well grounded, for a Primer cannot 
have, nor is intended to have, a system. System is 
none of its requirements. A Primer with a system 
ceases to be a Primer. This volume is unlike, has a 
right to be unlike, other Primers, for it is written by a 
few disembodied souls through a mortal hand. It 
presents essential facts and phenomena of the human 
soul, a systematic treatise of which would fill a hun- 
dred volumes. 

Peace, happiness and prosperity await the nation 
that shall root its laws, institutions and government 
in the wisdom and superior intelligence of departed 
souls. Misery and danger remain with the nations 
which insist that of the soul nothing is, nothing can 
be, known. Shall the day soon dawn when man will 
turn inwardly, learn to concentrate in the silence of 
the soul, cease to view life through distorting prisms 
of mist and doubt, and develop his soul-powers to 
keep pace with the daily increasing brain-powers ? 
Unless these questions be decided in the affirmative, 
the new conditions of the world will destroy the edi- 
fice of the State, for the hand on the world's dial 
points to the hour when the masses that are taught 
that they have souls, but are not taught that they are 
souls, will attack the fabrics of government. They 
are taught obedience to brain-law, but left in ignor- 
ance of soul-law, of the purpose of their mundane 
abode, the continuance of their life after death, and 
the possibility of returning if they wish to re-turn. 



Introductory Remarks 17 

All of which, in view of the intense development of 
the brain and the material world, is more important 
than anything else at the present time. If the masses 
possessed such knowledge and experience, the attack- 
ing party as well as the besieged and intrenched 
would grow peaceful, happy and contented. 

The condition of affairs in China illustrates the fate 
awaiting a nation whose soul-currents are not sus- 
tained by its brain-currents. A similar but worse 
fate awaits the nations whose advancing brain-currents 
are unsustained by developed soul-currents. 



The Soul 

14 There are more things in heav'n and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy ! ' 

Shakespeare. — Ha??ilet, Act 7, sc. 5. 

DROPS of water descending upon a rock in 
continuous succession and with continuous 
force finally pierce the rock, and when freez- 
ing within its pores burst the rock into frag- 
ments. During the time the drops are descending the 
consequences are not considered. But after the ada- 
mantine core is bursted, people begin to think, and 
enquire about the cause. 

In the stone or rain there is no soul, yet the stone 
is rent ; the rain is sent elsewhere to work in other 
parts of the world ; the stone desintegrates, and its 
particles fertilize the soil in the low lands whither it 
was driven by its friend, the water. The slow action 
of the rain grinding the rock ; the slow action of the 
water producing the fertilizing sand ; the slow action 
of the soil producing food ; the slow action of the 
food in being converted into ether and in feeding the 
soul — all these gradual, never-failing, thorough and 
serious steps of nature reach from a cloud-fed lonely 
mountain-rock to the imperious ruler of a country, some 
mighty satrap, war-lord and Demi-God worshipped 

19 



20 Soul-Return 



by his tools. Yet without that union of fluid and 
pulverized earth their majestic brains were a myth ; 
their momentous thoughts idle dreams. Drops of 
water eating into a stone feed man's brain, his unfold- 
ing heart, and his immortal soul. 

The reader asks, Are the Authors of this book 
materialists that they pin raw matter to refined souls ? 
As well may the pious enquire, Is God a materialist 
because He made matter ? The student of soul- 
science will ask, What kind of material is the soul 
made of ? Mortals hearing about the soul only 
through the literary traditions and hearsay of Pales- 
tine believe it is a creature composed of sheer noth- 
ing'; the bare mention of the soul's being something 
is in their eyes a crime. We assert that any person 
who assumes that the soul is composed of nothing is 
a denier of soul, and no better than the worshipper of 
an after-death Nirvana, or the blind man that looks 
upon vision as a nuisance. 

What, then, is the soul ? We answer : The soul is 
an ether entity. When it lives in the incarnated 
state it contains the material body. The outer por- 
tion of the soul envelops the body, and is called the 
aura. Every human being, every animal, every plant is 
a soul ; every soul has an aura. And every important 
organ of the body has an aura, which to distinguish it 
from the general aura surrounding the entire body, 
may be called an organ-aura. Its ether is peculiarly 
sensitive. Any violent agitation in it causes pain. 



The Soul 21 



All bodily pain is due to a disturbance in the action 
and motions of the particles of an organ-aura. The 
more sensitive an aura, the more readily may it be 
disturbed. A finger-nail has no aura, hence it may 
be cut without pain. 

An ether entity composed of, or containing, various 
ether organs, all in compact nearness although, in a 
sense, independent of one another, the whole envel- 
oped by an aura, the human aura, such a complex yet 
unified ether organism is the human soul. 

The most conspicuous organ-aura is the brain-aura. 
It crowns the head after the manner of the tonguey 
flames of a torch. It contains myriads of ether cur- 
rents resembling fine lines or threads, each about two 
feet long. The external end of each such thread 
floats in the air ; the other end is rooted in the gray 
matter of the brain, and the point at which it is rooted 
we call a brain-trace. Brain-aura currents easily 
become dormant and are easily revived again. If, for 
example, a person walking on the street notices a 
beautiful mastiff, the animal forms a trace upon his 
brain which soon becomes dormant. If later on he 
perceives a similar dog, currents from this animal pass 
to that brain-trace, agitate it, vivify the respective 
brain-aura current and cause this current to vibrate 
again. In other words, the current of the recent 
canine joins the earlier canine impression, because the 
current and the impression are harmonious to each 
other. This revives the old current, prompting the 



22 Soul-Return 



person to exclaim : " There goes a dog like the one I 
saw the other day!" Brain-traces attract currents 
from external objects, provided theae currents are like 
or similar to the things in the brain-traces. At the 
instant of attraction the brain-traces are revived. 
The process resembles the action of the steel point 
pressing against a revolving graphophone record ; 
that is, against tiny indentations or traces, which re- 
produces the old impression, the old song, the old 
tune. 

The depth of an ordinary human aura is about six 
inches, reckoned from the surface of the body out- 
ward. It increases as the soul unfolds. The aura of 
a well-developed mediumistic person may attain a 
depth of three hundred feet. The aura possesses 
peculiar motions, among them a vibratory movement 
of a lateral direction ; and a throbbing, palpitating 
movement of an up-and-down direction. A good 
clairvoyant may see these motions. They resemble, 
respectively, the swells of the ocean and the pulsa- 
tions of the hairspring of a watch. 

We mean no offence to the fair reader by the 
statement that the human body is a coarse, material- 
ized portion of the human soul. Taken together 
with the soul's coarsest non-materialized ether parts, 
the body may be said to constitute the physical por- 
tion of the soul. 

A human soul composed of coarse ether, or one 



The Soul 23 



that contains dark ether in spots or patches, is imper- 
fect, undeveloped, crude. Such a soul needs a grad- 
ual process of development or unfoldment, in order 
to improve, develop and clear its ether. The scale or 
distance between a soul that is crude and a soul that 
is well developed embraces thousand of degrees, grades 
and shades of partly developed conditions and qual- 
ities of souls, i. e., of soul-ether. Nature's remedy for 
all such imperfect conditions, that is, the method she 
employs for developing, unfolding and improving the 
soul, is Incarnation. Which means, that nature do- 
nates to the soul a body of flesh and bones in which 
it must dwell ; and a tenancy at the earth's surface in 
an electric field of action, where it should remain as 
long as possible. After the death of the body the 
soul passes back into the aura of the earth. The 
aura of the earth begins at the surface and extends 
about seventy-five thousand miles into space. The 
body of flesh and bones resembles a shell actuated 
and manipulated by currents, which for the present 
we call electric, although they are totally different 
from the electric currents in practical use and known 
to science. The soul, on the other hand, is actuated 
by an entirely different class of currents, which, al- 
though they are totally unlike the magnetic currents 
known to science, we call magnetic. The body, then, 
may be said to be electric ; the soul, magnetic. The 
term " Organic Life " refers to the life of a soul in a 
form, i. e., in a material, physical body. 



24 Soul-Return 



The aura is part of the soul, and develops with it. 
The development of the one involves and carries with 
it the development of the other. And the mosses, 
fungi, ferns, lichens, weeds, flowers, trees, in other 
words, the entire vegetable kingdom, and the animal 
kingdom and the races of man are souls residing in 
material or physical forms for the purpose of unfold- 
ment and development. 

The following are the main functions of the* human 
aura : 

i. The human aura indicates the grade or quality 
of its own ether and that of the soul of which it 
forms part. 

The ether of the aura and that of the soul to which 
the aura belongs are always of the same grade, or 
quality. The aura therefore expresses the degree of 
maturity, the quality of the soul. 

A reasonable familiarity with human auras would 
enable a mortal to gain a knowledge of himself and 
his fellow beings ; and to judge his fellow beings 
from the indications which their auras furnish. It 
would prevent him from judging them from their ex- 
terior appearance or their pretensions. In a wide and 
comprehensive sense it may be said truly : A man is 
his aura. 

The human soul, then, begins incarnated life in a 
body, or form. At the close of life's season it beholds 
" A pale horse, and his name that sits on it is Death," 



The Soul 25 



whereupon it leaves the form and enters the earth's 
aura, or ether zones. As it enters, it is not greeted 
and received by a gateman or janitor with ornamented 
keys, but is assigned its place by the inexorable 
forces of nature which, regardless of earth's oratory, 
station or wealth, solely ascertain its condition 
through the condition of the aura. With the rigidity 
with which a stone is compelled to sink in water they 
compel a coarse soul to stay below, that is, near the 
earth's surface ; with the precision with which hydro- 
gen gas rises in the air they permit the developed 
soul to occupy at once a higher place in the spheres 
of the earth's aura. 

As a man here below is known usually by his face, 
so a departed soul in the Beyond is judged and known 
by its aura. 

2. The human aura indicates the motions of the 
soul and the condition of the soul-organs ; it acts as 
the individual's agent and interpreter in all communi- 
cations between him and the " other side." If a per- 
son suffers, e. g., from a defect in his heart, the de- 
fect appears in the heart-aura and the general aura 
long before it is diagnosed by the physician. 

An apple hangs on a tree. It becomes detached 
and falls to the ground. Some one picks it up and 
eats it. Desire, action, movement, result, appear in 
this person's aura. His desire for the apple is ex- 
pressed by a peculiar motion in his aura-ether. His 
subsequent actions his aura expresses by vibrations or 



26 Soul-Return 



waves caused by the currents of certain ether organs 
which help to set his body in motion. In a similar 
way his movements are impressed upon his aura. 
Whatever transpires in the interior of the soul is 
transmitted to, and indicated by, the aura. 

Soul-love, that is, the pure, true love of an incar- 
nated human soul for an incarnated soul of the op- 
posite sex, appears in the aura of the loving mortal. 
If his aura is mediumistic or very sensitive it tends 
to move toward the aura of the beloved when near 
the beloved, as if wishing to be very close to it. 
This may be distinctly perceived, in some instances 
even distinctly seen, by a harmonious disembodied 
soul. 

The will of the soul emanates from the soul-body ; 
that is, from the ensemble of the ether organs and 
non-materialized portions of the soul. (See page 48.) 

3. The human aura indicates the progress of the 
soul made in all its preceding incarnations. The 
human aura is the index of the soul, that is, of its 
quality or grade. 

The reader's present form is a flesh-and-bone body 
which he inhabits now for the first time. When he 
lived on terra firma in previous incarnations, he pos- 
sessed in each incarnation a different body. For the 
sake of argument, let his present earth-life be his 
forty-first incarnation ; or, what is the same, let us 
suppose that his soul ere entering his present form 
inhabited forty forms successively. Then his present 



The Soul 27 



soul-condition is the result, the exponent of the soul's 
entire previous earth experience; and his aura indi- 
cates the degree of maturity of his soul-ether, regard- 
less of mundane border-flowers such as station, luck, 
fame or gold. The examination of a person's aura re- 
veals the secret of his ego ; interprets his existence ; 
discloses the condition of his soul. The question 
" Who am I ? " is answered correctly : " I am my 
aura!" An answer such as " I am Richard Roe" 
would be superficial, for in man's earth-life and in 
the soul's unending course names are mere trifles. 
During forty incarnations a soul bears forty different 
names, none of which has any value after the death 
of the form. In a psychic sense there is nothing in a 
name. 

4. The human aura indicates the usefulness of its 
ether for the manifestations of soul-facts. 

The main requisite for the manifestations of soul- 
facts is a mediumistic aura, i. e., an aura endowed 
with one or more peculiar properties. Its ether par- 
ticles are peculiarly constituted. (See page 44.) 
Manifestations of departed souls occur only in medi- 
umistic auras. 

5 . The human aura indicates the desires and long- 
ings of the soul. 

Auras have different colors and tints. The darker 
the tint of an aura the worse is the quality of its 
ether. The lowest class of souls, the so-called earth- 
bound, are entirely black. After transition they 



28 Soul-Return 



cannot rise beyond about a hundred feet above the 
ground, which to a soul is a terrible calamity. They 
are incarnated in small numbers only, about one per 
cent of the population of the globe. Whether they 
live incarnated or in the free state, i. e., as disem- 
bodied souls, they possess enormous power for evil. 
Notable instances of souls at this day still earth-bound 
are Philip II of Spain, Napoleon I, the Duke of 
Alba, and Nero. 

The other extremes of soul-quality are the devel- 
oped souls. They are of a white color with a bluish 
tint. They form about ten per cent of the earth's, in- 
carnated population. The remaining ninety per cent 
range from the dark, the spotted, the coarse and the 
black of the earth-bound, in all possible shades and 
varieties, to the class of developed souls. Among 
these the variety and grades of unfoldment are be- 
yond the possibility of enumeration. 

Souls of meagre unfoldment, immature develop- 
ment and insufficient earth experience in previous in- 
carnations are often called physical. Their previous 
earth-lives were too short ; several, perhaps many, of 
them ended prematurely, which destroyed the greatest 
opportunity for soul-unfoldment : a long life in the 
form. 

Suppose that a person, A, in every one of his forty 
incarnations died during infancy, and that to-day he 
lives in his forty-first incarnation. He may truly be 
said to have had less opportunity for soul-development 



The Soul 29 



than another soul that in every one of its forty 
incarnations was so fortunate as to attain old age. 
Unless prevented by education, instruction, fear, or 
the meritorious and powerful example of worthy mor- 
tals near him, A is a criminal. 

The developed soul is modest, accessible to the 
needy ; anxious to help others ; nearly exempt from 
physical elements of soul. Its imperfections cause an 
easily reparable unevenness of ether tissues, which 
scarcely blurs the aura. 

Owing to the difference of the condition of their 
souls children of the same parents may be heteroge- 
neous, which, as has been stated, is owing to the 
difference in longevity in their former incarnated 
lives. It must be borne in mind that parents do not 
select the souls of their children ; they merely supply 
the souls with flesh-and-bone garments. 

Highly advanced disembodied souls tell us that 
they believe the human soul came originally to this 
globe in a crude condition for the purpose of under- 
going a process of repairs or unfoldment and develop- 
ment. Whether for this purpose our globe is a good 
place or a poor one depends upon the instruction the 
soul receives through the brain, i. e., the brain-aura; 
upon the comprehension man acquires of the elemen- 
tary laws of physical science, and his opportunities 
for receiving the instruction of departed souls that are 
acquainted with his needs and wants. Nature's general 



30 Soul-Return 



plan for developing and unfolding the soul is : Life 
in a material form at the surface of the earth ; and 
thereafter the more definite and specific but slower 
disembodied life in the earth's aura. When Jesus 
said His kingdom was not of this earth, he was right. 
No soul is of this earth. The soul is a stranger here 
below, sent here for instruction and education. At 
the completion of its mundane tour, after outgrowing 
earth-life and sphere-life, and all earth-conditions, it 
will exchange this globe for one more spiritual. And 
still later, in ages of time hence, the soul passes to 
star Alcyone. During the immense journey, from 
the advent of the soul on our planet to its arrival on 
that distant star it preserves its aura, its identity, its 
individuality. 

Drops of water falling upon a rock continuously 
invade the interior of the rock, and when the water 
freezes within, the rock bursts. These illustrations 
of the effect of natural forces find their likes in 
nature's psychic domain, where the continuing silent 
action of currents animating the human aura end in 
bursting asunder its flinty elements, which purifies 
the soul and enables it to benefit the human race. 



II 
The Soul Continued 

IMMEDIATELY upon the death of its form the 
soul passes to the stratum of ether in which it is 
in equilibrium with surrounding forces or currents. 
If it is undeveloped, earthy, crude, or worse, earth- 
bound, it finds its equilibrium in the dense and, to a de- 
parted soul, filthy atmosphere close to the earth's sur- 
face. If it is a better soul, it finds its equilibrium at 
once in a more elevated portion of the atmosphere. It 
may return earthward at will ; but it cannot rise except 
through a gradual progression. No exception is or 
can be made ; no soul can omit or leap over a single 
inch of ether higher than its own level ; no grace or 
pardon avails ; the laws of nature permit none. The 
government of this globe, of the entire solar system, 
is one of laws. The gradual progression implies a 
thorough practice in the work of resisting certain 
forces that tend to render the soul coarse, and to 
neutralize or even oppose its progression. The ef- 
forts and labors of a departed soul during its life in 
the first seven spheres of the earth's aura, called the 
earth-spheres, are devoted to its own interests. Every 

3i 



32 Soul-Return 



soul soon after leaving the form discovers that it 
must stand upon its own merits. 

The main labors of the individual on terra firma 
and in the spheres consist in overcoming resistances, 
in fighting adverse currents, vicious influences, and 
forces that tend to jerk the soul in contrary direc- 
tions. In the never-ceasing struggle a mortal's great- 
est assistance is early familiarization with the manip- 
ulation of psychic currents, which is obtainable only 
by intercourse with his friends on high. 

Nature incarnates the soul at a prenatal day. In 
other words, at a certain stage of development an 
earth-sphere soul is condensed into the size of about a 
walnut, and properly inserted where it becomes the 
tenant of the infant several months before birth. 
Soul and body amalgamate into one individual, the 
Ego. Were the soul blown into the infant after birth, 
how could the young form be maintained before the 
act of blowing, or between the act and the birth, since 
body-life is impossible without a vivifying soul within ? 
We are going to explain why the soul remains in the 
body during earth-life. In other words, we are about 
to answer the question, What prevents the soul from 
leaving a healthy person at any moment ? The as- 
tonishing fact that so attenuated an entity as the soul 
may stay in a dense, earthy body for scores of years 
merits an explanation. We undertake the explana- 
tion, stripping it of technicalities as far as the intri- 
cate subject permits. 



The Soul Continued 33 

Soul and body are held together by the mutual at- 
traction between currents of the body and currents of 
the soul. 

The organs of the body are in constant interaction 
with one another. Every 7 one of them is in reality an 
ether organ partly materialized, and enveloped by an 
aura. The physical heart, for example, is a partly 
materialized portion of the real heart, the ether heart ; 
and the ether heart is enveloped in an ether aura which 
is the outer portion of the physical as well as the 
ether heart. The body-organs generate currents which 
for the purpose of illustration may be denoted by a. 

The organs of the soul also act upon one another con- 
stantly, which interaction produces magnetic currents. 
Thus, the ether heart generates magnetic currents, 
which attract and are attracted by the electric currents 
of the physical heart. This mutual attraction binds the 
ether heart to its physical portion, the physical heart. 
For like reasons, every other ether organ remains 
united with its respective physical or body-organ. 

The remaining portion of the body generates cur- 
rents which may be denoted by b. They attract and 
are attracted by other currents of a higher order 
which are generated by certain ether parts in the cen- 
tral portion of the soul. These parts, together with 
the ether organs, form the soul-body. 

Quantity a-\-i stands for certain currents of the 
body and its organs, which attract and hold in place 
currents d of the soul-body. 



34 Soul-Return 



Currents a -f- b are often called electric for want of 
a proper name. They should not be confounded with 
the electric currents known to physical science. The 
currents under d represent soul-currents, and, as said 
before, they are of a much higher order than the 
others. They may be called magnetic until a more 
appropriate name can be substituted. They are not 
identical with, nor related to, the magnetic currents 
known to physical science. 

There remains the aura of the soul. Owing to its 
ascensional power it has a tendency to leave the body, 
and in leaving it the soul-body would go with the 
aura, as the two belong together. But this tendency 
is counteracted by the attraction of the form as an 
entirety, independent of the work done mentioned 
before. For example, when a person walks in the 
open air he performs internal work. His body re- 
ceives electric force from the ground. With this 
force, and with the aid of certain inductive processes 
that cannot be explained here, currents of another 
kind, c, are produced, which attract and bind the aura, 
that is, certain magnetic currents, e, of the aura, to 
the soul-body. 

To recapitulate : 

i. The electric, a, of the body-organs attracts the 
magnetic of the ether organs. 

2. The remainder of the electric currents b of the 
body attracts the magnetic currents of the remainder 
of the soul-body. 



The Soul Continued 35 

3. Quantity a -f- b and the magnetic currents d of 
the soul-body and ether organs attract one another. 

4. Quantity c, the ether currents of the body as a 
unit, attracts the aura by means of magnetic aura 
currents e. 

The electric, then, is represented by a -f- b -j- c ; 
let it be designated by n. And the magnetic of the 
soul is represented by d -\- e, which may be desig- 
nated by 0. Now, as long as n remains substantially 
equal to so long will human life be maintained; 
that is, so long will the soul remain in the body. 
This is the normal condition of human life as it should 
prevail everywhere upon the globe. If from disease, 
accident or acts of violence n grows smaller than o, 
then the soul is not sufficiently attracted by and to 
the body and must leave it, which causes transition, 
the event known as death. 

If n is greatly in excess of 0, life is too crude, too 
earthy. Let such excess be denoted by g. Then g 
represents the crude-physical force which controls the 
manifold operations and transactions of mundane life. 

With its habitual precision Science will one day un- 
fold the delicate and intricate tissue of currents that 
quicken the soul during its enforced incarnated life, 
and delineate the process by which the soul maintains 
itself in the electric, i. e., in the form. 

All men are condemned to die. Compared with 
the soul's immortal state earth-life is only an incident. 
Death is as natural as earth-life. It restores the soul 



36 Soul-Return 



to its natural state, which is that of a free ether entity. 
As we have seen, the proximate cause of death is the 
cessation of one or more soul-retaining currents. 

A person's sudden or entirely unexpected transi- 
tion is a terrible calamity to the soul. Souls that ex- 
perienced it describe their feeling at the fatal moment 
as the feeling experienced by a person in the act of 
drowning. Fright, anguish, surprise, helplessness, 
torment the poor soul until some harmonious departed 
soul brings aid and comfort. Even a slight knowl- 
edge of soul facts and psychic phenomena, acquired 
during earth-life, will help the unfortunate being. 
Equally unfortunate is he whom a protracted illness 
prevented from exercising earth-life's activities. He 
arrives in the Beyond devoid of a period of natural 
progress, and is greatly benefited by a speedy reunion 
with some friend or loved one still living in the form. 

A pitiable lot is that of departed children's souls. 
On arriving in the Beyond they are as helpless as 
they were on the day they first beheld "the light of 
the world." They grow up slowly to the same state 
of maturity that they should have attained in the 
form. When fully grown they are again what they 
were before their interrupted incarnation. In other 
words, they lose time ; for in the spheres the process 
of growth is much slower than in the form. 

After death — what ? A man breathed vigorous 
life yesterday ; to-day only a cold shell, a pallid form 



The Soul Continued 37 

seems left of him. What became of him ? Departed 
as well as departing souls, by a convenient use of 
their condensing powers, may manifest to a clairvoy- 
ant. Clairvoyants that have witnessed a soul's de- 
parture from its form state that such a soul is first 
seen to lie upon the dying body face to face, then 
slowly to move a short distance from the body and 
disappear. During this movement its eyes are closed, 
its cheeks as white as snow. Many such occurrences 
have been witnessed ; but they are not recorded be- 
cause the human soul is not the thing publicists care 
to discuss except perhaps in mockery. 

A soul just liberated from its prison of flesh and 
bones neither exults over its freedom, expansion and 
powers, nor exhibits the vigor of chemical elements in 
the statu nascendi. A newly departed soul is tired, 
and begins its magnetic sleep, the profoundest sleep 
of all, at a place not far from the corpse. This sleep 
commences with the departure of the soul from the 
body, and in the case of highly developed souls 
lasts about twenty-four hours ; in other classes of 
souls it lasts much longer, as long as thirty years ; in 
dark cases even longer. The length of magnetic 
sleep after transition is inversely as the development 
of the soul. That is, the greater the development, 
the shorter the magnetic sleep. Coarse souls, even 
after awaking, may remain unconscious of their act- 
ual condition for a long time, during which they are 
not aware even that they are "dead." 



38 Soul-Return 



As an illustration let the reader imagine that he is 
clairaudient and near a poorly developed mother that 
is just awaking from her magnetic sleep, but still un- 
conscious of the fact that she has lost her body. She 
attempts to sit up. She exclaims, " Where am I ? " 
She asks, "Where are you?" referring to her hus- 
band. She resembles a patient awaking from a cura- 
tive sleep, asking, " Where am I ? Why do you stare 
at me ? . . . I am not sick ... I feel quite well . . . 
let me rise!'' She calls her children. The ether 
bonds between mother and child are more enduring 
than the man of bronze on horseback in the market- 
place. The seasons come and go ; souls fritter away 
their lives and eternity for the rainbow-toys of fame, 
and nations perish ; but parental ties ever connect the 
earth with the ethereal zones ... a mother with the 
currents that once encompassed her infant's cradle. 
She calls her children again ... no answer. She calls 
louder ; no answer. She thinks it strange ; she- lis- 
tens ; a sweet voice is heard ... a soul disembodied 
like herself approaches ... it is her mother of her 
incarnation preceding. ..." Dear one, when you lived 
on earth before, I was your mother. You are now a 
spirit ; your form is laid away ... in the ground 
below.' ' 

The poor woman hears the whispered words ; she 
learns her condition and for the first time the true 
meaning of death. But the visiting angel is well de- 
veloped ; she must leave, although the undeveloped 



The Soul Continued 39 

daughter implores her to stay. As always, the laws 
of nature prevail. Besides, there is a lack of har- 
mony. . . . " I will send you help ... do not weep. 
I must leave you now ! " 

She is gone. Some one among the souls harmoni- 
ous to an imperfectly unfolded being will aid. Thanks 
to faulty earth-teachings on the subject of the soul 
the spheres are full of such souls. The agonizing 
woman endeavors to move ; but she is uninstructed 
and therefore unable to move ; she does not know her 
condensing powers. Souls move and prehend by 
means of currents which must be studied and prac- 
tised ere a soul can move ; for departed souls have 
neither arms nor legs. They need them as little as 
steamships need oars. 

The mother is in great misery, knowing neither 
how nor whither to proceed. She is as lonely as a 
pauper ; as helpless as when she came first into the 
flesh she just left. She is blind, for earth-sphere 
souls do not possess vision unless they sojourn in the 
aura of a harmonious instrument. She is waiting, 
restless, in despair. Her mind dwells on the comfort 
in her home below . . . her children . . . how she 
used to help them . . . her husband . . . her friends. 
She asks, " Does he know how unhappy I am ? A 
living corpse in this wide and chilly space. ... Is it 
all a dream ? Am I in the universe ? " Then she re- 
membered she once heard about the soul ... its 
return . . . and such things. She thinks of her 



4-0 Soul-Return 



jokes about spooks, her insinuations . . . her smiles. 
She exclaims, "Oh, if I had my body again . . . for 
a day . . . for an hour ... I could say something 
to them . . . tell them how I suffer and what I 
know ! ',' 

In a few hundred years she will inhabit a mortal 
shell again and thereafter return to the " other side" 
in a better state, as a developed soul. 

Now let the reader meet a newly departed woman 
of a more elevated quality of ether, a well-developed 
soul, familiar with the ordinary range of soul-phe- 
nomena, including soul-return. She awakens in the 
Beyond, at once knowing her position and condition. 
She recognizes the voices of kind-hearted souls that 
were attracted to her long before her transition ; she 
hears them whisper, " Welcome to your new home ! " 
When a person arrives in the Beyond it makes such 
a difference how he is received ! The kind-hearted 
souls knew her ; they had been at her earth-home 
long before her demise. They teach her enough 
about condensation to enable her to move to a beauti- 
ful home which they and other loved ones selected 
and prepared for her. The walls of a spirit-home are 
of condensed ether, surrounded by ether flowers of 
sweet fragrance. She is installed. Strangers greet her ; 
they long to speak to her, to teach and assist her. 

In a short time she returns to her earth-home. It is 
seance-day. Her husband is in the little room where 
they met their invisible friends when she was still 



The Soul Continued 41 

with him in the form. He is waiting for her; a me- 
dium is present, through whom she may deliver a 
message. The room is and will remain a soul-home, 
dedicated to the use of the departed ; the things in it 
will remain as she left them. Her chair is reserved 
for her. She now occupies it as a spirit. The seance 
is like the one held in the same room shortly before 
she passed away. Although her soul- ether is a qual- 
ity superior to her husband's, he feels her presence. 
Years spent in investigating soul-facts have rendered 
him sensitive to ether impressions. 

She sends a message through the medium, in which 
she describes her transition, her situation, her recep- 
tion in the Beyond ; her journey, her new home, and 
the meeting with her friends. 

Should the reader consider the foregoing an ideal 
condition of things in the sense of its being untrue 
or overdrawn, he is wrong. The condition is real. 
To our positive knowledge it exists wherever man 
has learned the truth of facts and the facts of truth. 

After acclimatization on the other side departed 
souls occupy themselves with their progression so in- 
tensely that even longings after their loved ones that 
are left below succumb to the all-absorbing " What 
shall I do ? What am I fit for ? How rapidly can I 
rise ? When shall I reach the divine sphere ? " We 
have heard conversations like the following, carried on 
between two unequally developed souls : 



42 Soul-Return 



u You know the reason why a person is incarnated ? " 

"Yes; to advance more rapidly." 

" You are now without a form in which to ad- 
vance. . . ." 

"Yes. . . ." 

" Do you know why earth-life helps the progression 
of the soul ? " 

"No. . . ." 

" The form is electric ; the soul is magnetic. A 
soul fresh from the pandemonium of earth needs a 
quick-refining process. This requires the physical, 
the electric of earth. The incarnated soul resembles 
a magnetic core in an electric shell, the human 
body. Both are interwoven, in which state the 
soul progresses more rapidly than in the free 
state. . . ." 

" What am I to do ? " 

st Return into the electric as soon as you can. En- 
ter a human aura. It stands next in usefulness to a 
human form such as you have lost. There you will 
mingle again with the electric of a mortal . . . you 
will live again in a human aura, although not your 
own. It is like living in a rented house. Your life 
will not be as complete as it was during your incarna- 
tion, but it will be a more expeditious process for souls 
of your quality of ether than the life in the spheres 
over here. You require the aura of a harmonious 
mortal, for it is a feeble substitute for the life in a 
body of your own. . . .'■ 



The Soul Continued 43 

Nature's rule is : Human soul, while Thou art on 
earth Thou shalt live and labor in a human aura ! 

As incarnation promotes soul-development, so the 
labor of a departed soul, when it returns into an 
electric field, promotes soul-development. The labor 
of a departed soul in a mortal aura resembles the 
soul's previous life in a form. Its great benefit 
to the departed explains the anxiety of disembodied 
souls to return and discover some aura suitable to 
their progression ; adapted to their ether condition ; 
harmonious to their currents. The reader under- 
stands now why departed souls chase after the mortal 
of the congenial aura, and why they desire to reside 
in it. They wish to continue the process of unfold- 
ment which was interrupted by the death of their 
form. They resemble tramps in search of work. 
They are in a strange world of currents free from the 
material, i. e., the electric of the form and, except in 
rare cases, unprotected by parental care. They are 
aware of the difference between their present loneli- 
ness and the tender care they received when they 
were still infants. 

Once the harmonious aura found and seized upon, 
the elated soul labors incessantly for recognition, to 
notify the mortal aura-owner that a disembodied soul 
has arrived in his aura and there begun the much- 
coveted toil. This toil may consist of raps, levitation, 
writing, materialization or impressions ; anything that 
fits the character of the aura and prevailing conditions. 



44 Soul-Return 



Nature's law is not "Thou shalt develop what Thou 
hast, but " Thou shalt develop what Thou art . . . 
quid ipse sis ! " The plains, valleys, mountains, rivers, 
oceans ; the vegetable and animal kingdoms ; the ter- 
restrial aura; the earth's endless array of facts, all 
serve the unfoldment, development and free and am- 
ple use of the soul. 

The mediumistic aura is suited to the earth-labors 
of departed souls. Its ether is highly sensitive, which 
adapts it to the heterogeneous currents of other auras 
without being deranged thereby, and renders it ca- 
pable of condensing electric currents without endanger- 
ing its structure, vibrations and quality. Aura-quality 
and aura-power are innate properties of the indi- 
vidual. About three persons among ten are born 
mediumistic. 

Man's ignorance in soul-matters prevents many me- 
diumistic persons from developing their aura and its 
psychic gifts ; it prompts not a few to conceal their 
powers ; it causes others to remain unconscious of 
them. But all such enslaved beings possess remark- 
able sensitiveness, of which even a " splendid educa- 
tion " cannot rob them. In former centuries severe 
punishment was visited on strongly mediumistic per- 
sons. They were treated as witches, dissenters, her- 
etics, sorcerers or obsessed beings ; they were tor- 
tured, strangled, burnt at the stake. Those whose 
auras permitted the access of crude-physical souls, 
and who when under their control uttered the words 



The Soul Continued 45 

of such souls, were charged with being possessed by 
the devil, and were treated with additional cruelty. 

Under existing conditions of earth-life nine incar- 
nated souls among ten are undeveloped at the present 
time — a ratio altogether too large, owing to the fre- 
quency of slaughter, poverty, famine, disease, war and 
other curses, which compel a multitude of mortals to 
leave their body ahead of schedule time. This neces- 
sitates a greater frequency of reincarnation, and causes 
the rate of undeveloped mortals to be so uncommonly 
high. In the present conditions of earth-life, there- 
fore, and in the absence of a Science of the Soul many 
communications from the Beyond come from unde- 
veloped or crude-physical souls who are powerful, 
physically speaking, and who enjoy any kind of mis- 
chief or fun in a mediumistic aura. They press for 
recognition with great emphasis ; and their superior 
physical power enables them to force themselves into 
such auras, compelling the disembodied friends and 
loved ones of a mortal to stand aside. (See page 84.) 
Crude-physical souls swarm round every medium in 
crowds, anxious to work in his aura. The chief pur- 
pose of developing a medium is to prevent this ; in 
other words, to protect both the instrument and the 
public against their nefarious work. 

The old enemy of mankind, the destroyer of virtue 
and the progenitor of vice ; the imposter of old and 



46 Soul-Return 



betrayer of all times ; the Satan pictured by creeds 
and sects ; the tempter of the pure ; the seducer of 
the innocent ; the slayer of men and traducer of their 
fame ; the thief, and the robber of man's peace and 
good will ; the incarnate spirit of negation and oppres- 
sion ; -the mildew encroaching upon mundane happi- 
ness and bliss ; the ever triumphant enemy of truth 
and health, is neither a snake nor a fallen prince ; it 
is the crude-physical property or element of the em- 
bodied and disembodied souls that live on terra firma 
and in the spheres above. 

The power of the crude-physical prevails in all 
mundane or terrestrial affairs ; it dominates the 
majority of mankind. It is an important ingredient 
of the psychic portion of this globe. Our globe was 
formed for the purpose of giving the crude-physical 
souls an opportunity of losing, or freeing themselves 
from, their crude-physical properties which obstruct 
the progression of such souls. All the souls now in- 
habiting the earth and its spheres were once entirely 
crude-physical ; none of them can leave this planet ere 
the last trace of the crude-physical in their ether is 
extinguished. 

The reality of life is operated by the soul in its free, 
i. e., disembodied state. The soul's life in the form, 
living at the surface of the earth, that is, at the base 
of the ether spheres of this globe, is a masquerade, a 
dream, an unreality. All incarnated life is unreal 



The Soul Continued 47 

because it is based upon unreal, i. e., condensed ether; 
that is, upon ether condensed into solid, liquid and gase- 
ous bodies. This species of condensation is made use 
of by nature solely for the purpose of calling into exist- 
ence, and maintaining the life of, souls in the incar- 
nated state at the surface of such condensed worlds or 
globes as our earth. 

The kinds of condensation to which free ether may 
be subjected are beyond numerical expression. The 
kinds of condensation that may be undergone by ether 
entities such as the human soul are legion. The two 
great properties of ether are Condensibility, i. e., the 
capacity of condensation in manifold ways ; and Per- 
fect Elasticity, which includes the perfect freedom of 
locomotion without friction or loss of time. 

The structure of the ether entity known as the 
human soul is complicated. It consists of as many 
ether organs as there are separate and distinct organs 
of the human body. The soul's envelope, the aura, 
has a life of its own, carried on by means of a vast 
number of magnetic currents, each of which is a thing 
sin generis. The soul also contains non-materialized 
ether organs situate within the human body, consist- 
ing of seven distinct organs, which are the centre of 
the soul. They constitute the individual, the Self, 
the being that acts, wills and suffers. They are not 
materialized ; materialization would spoil them. They 
are invisible even to a clairvoyant, because they never 



48 Soul-Return 



condense. The quality of their ether is identical 
with that of the aura, as has been stated. A coarse 
aura means a coarse soul-body, i. e., a coarse crude 
Self. 

The seven organs are grouped in a cluster whose 
shape is oblong ; it corresponds to the human trunk. 
Each of the organs has a system of pulsation of its 
own, but no two pulsations of the seven organs coin- 
cide. They have other motions besides. The cen- 
tral one of the seven is the most important organ for 
us to consider, as it forms the central part of the 
human individual. It is a sphere of the size of a 
billiard ball, surrounded by an exceedingly delicate 
and sensitive film acting as its aura. This sphere has 
a variety of motions, including a throbbing or pulsat- 
ing movement. None of these motions or movements 
originate on terra firma. It is neither extinguished 
nor affected by the soul's ante vitam condensation, 
but comes with the soul and remains uncondensed 
throughout earth-life. In other words, the soul, at 
its incarnation, lies within this ethereal, spherical body 
or soul-centre. This soul-centre is in vibrating con- 
nection with the Beyond. Its pulsations are those 
of certain currents prevailing in the upper spheres 
of the earth's aura, which are not indigenous to these 
spheres, but reach beyond them, far into the unknown 
and at present unknowable depths of the Universe. 
Thus does the human soul form part of the Infin- 
ite, and connect with the fathomless sea of currents 



The Soul Continued 49 

whose home is everywhere, whose confines are 
nowhere. 



The cluster of seven organs is directly connected 
with the brain-aura ; hence the actions of this ether 
organ react upon the cluster ; and the action of the 
cluster connects with the brain-aura. To illustrate : 
A calls on B for a loan of money. B listens to the 
request. Its sound waves impinge upon his ear. 
Their ether particles impinge upon the brain-aura. 
The brain-aura impresses them upon the brain, and 
simultaneously an impression is made upon the cluster. 
Suppose that B's soul is highly developed ; it will im- 
mediately consent, unless the brain-aura has weighty 
arguments against granting the request. The con- 
senting current reaches the brain-aura. If this organ 
is in harmony with the soul that is of gentle tissue, 
although perhaps not overpoweringly developed, and 
if, as has been stated, no particular grounds combat 
the loan, the brain-aura will vibrate in unison, and 
the currents produced will set the tongue in motion, 
announcing compliance with the request. But if the 
brain is unusually strong, out of proportion to the 
cluster, then its vibrations may overrule the soul 
and dictate to the tongue a different course, i. e., 
a refusal. 

Suppose now that B's soul is coarse, dark, undevel- 
oped. It will then be miserly, and the currents it 
sends to the brain-aura will be of a like tenor. The 



50 Soul-Return 



brain-aura, unless its combination tends in the oppo- 
site direction and is strong enough to overpower the 
cluster, will vibrate in harmony with these currents, 
which after transmission to the tongue means a re- 
fusal. 

The will of the soul is executed by the several ether 
organs mentioned on page 47, including the brain- 
aura. Its main factors are 

1. The quality of the ether composing the soul. 

2. The magnetic forces or currents active in the 
soul and permeating it. 

3. The brain-aura. 

4. The quality of ether from the spheres, drawn or 
attracted by the brain-aura, indirectly affecting and 
often determining soul-action. 

5. External currents agitating the soul-body. 

In the expression of the will of the soul, the part 
played by the brain is an indirect one. The soul acts 
directly upon the brain-aura, not upon the brain. And 
vice versa, the brain-aura acts directly upon the soul, 
not upon the brain. 

Earth-life revolves round the material Ego ; sphere- 
life round the disembodied Ego. As has been stated, 
life here below and that in the Beyond serve but one 
purpose, viz., the unfoldment and development of the 
soul. Nothing in the whole range of perplexities, 
obstacles and difficulties is so difficult to bring about 



The Soul Continued 51 

as a change in the quality of the ether in the human 
soul ; for nothing is more averse to a change or altera- 
tion than ether, this wonderful, subtle world-material. 
Even its condensation or materialization is compar- 
atively easier to accomplish, for it involves merely a 
change of state. The difference between pig iron and 
its original free ether is not as great nor as important 
as that between two souls of different grades or quali- 
ties. To make a dark soul into a white soul implies 
tremendous labor, immense outlays of force, the over- 
coming of enormous difficulties and, in addition, ages 
of time. The means employed to accomplish the 
change consist in incarnation and its resulting earth- 
experience, and in the alternating life in the spheres 
of the earth's aura until further incarnation becomes 
unnecessary. The soul, then, receives its last finish- 
ing touches during its uninterrupted life in the spheres. 
The knowledge of incarnation is not new ; nor is 
it properly understood. The sufferings of a sensitive 
incarnated soul are sometimes unendurable, owing to 
the general ignorance concerning such sensitiveness. 
Such a soul feels uncomfortable in its form. This 
book acquaints such refined souls with the cause of 
their present unhappiness. Its instruction is a com- 
fort to them, because they know that immediately 
after the demise of their body they pass to a stratum 
of ether more homogeneous to their own ether, where 
the individual, the soul, will be happier. Every individ- 
ual has a brain and a heart, but is a soul ; and after 



52 Soul-Return 



demise of the form will pass to that place in the 
earth's ether spheres where it is in proper equilibrium 
with its surroundings and with all impinging forces. 

In the tumult and bustle of daily life man overlooks 
the fact that he is pulled hither and thither like a 
stage-rat, in zigzag paths, by strings from behind or 
above the stage, and made to move about in zigzag 
paths by other artificial means. He overlooks it be- 
cause he is ignorant, and he is ignorant because, like 
a bachelor in luck, he chuckles over newly discovered 
joys. The pulling hither and thither and all other 
movements come from the soul ; but he thinks they 
are spontaneous with the Ego. He should be taught 
early that the soul is the kernel ; the rest of the Ego 
the envelope. 



Ill 
Soul-Return 

" For of the soul the body form doth take." 

Spenser. — Hymn in Honor of Beauty. 



AS long as the soul remains in the incarnated 
state the functions of the body, including 
those of the heart and brain, are in full 
activity. After leaving the body the soul 
still lives ; it has moved into a new domicile, which in 
reality is its old domicile and more adapted to its new 
conditions. The body decomposes in the grave ; its 
admirers mourn ; its relatives wear crape ; the public 
in general has already forgotten it. The admirers, 
relatives and the public in general never knew the 
demised Ego's soul ; they knew only the body. The 
grave is silent ; the heirs pursue their former ways as 
if death had broken nothing ; the world continues its 
business. In all this, where is the soul ? Does it 
visit the home it left, the brains it kindled, the hearts 
it broke ? The answer is : It needs a little time to 
learn how to return and tell its tale ; how to manifest 
again in mortal garb or otherwise. Just as soon as 
an opportunity arises the soul will preach in accents 
loud and strong, that a mortal is a soul, and has as its 

53 



54 Soul-Return 



accessories a brain and a heart ; which is the reverse 
of what the world is in the habit of thinking, viz., that 
a mortal is all brain and heart, and has a soul. 

Can souls return? New investigations, probed 
records, satisfactory evidence, even the old texts, 
answer : Souls do return. 

When disembodied souls visit terra firma they do 
so to perform labor of some kind in a human aura. 
The kind of labor depends mainly upon the quality 
and the condition of the aura in which they are to 
work. They cannot manifest or perform labor unless 
they are in the aura of a mortal that is mediumistic. 
If such an aura is of a peculiar tenacity, permitting 
them, while in the aura, to focus their strength unin- 
terruptedly ; and if the aura permits the infusion of 
additional currents of a certain kind, it enables them 
to produce phenomena of levitation : Objects such as 
a table, a chair, or a stove actually rise in the air. 

Levitation succeeds best with objects of plain sur- 
faces, these being adapted to the application of the 
additional currents just mentioned. The souls en- 
gaged in producing this phenomenon — as a rule there 
are several who join their forces — belong to the 
physical kind. They possess a supply of those cur- 
rents, and mingle a portion of them with a like quan- 
tity of the same kind ox current found in the aura of 
the medium. The mixture enables them to condense 
a sufficient quantity of ether immediately above the 



Soul-Return 55 



object, e. g., a table. This condensation produces a 
vacuum. Round this vacuum they establish an ether 
wall to prevent the surrounding ether from rushing in 
and destroying the vacuum. The wall consists of 
condensed ether, the degree of condensation being 
slight, not one-hundredth as strong as that required 
to produce the vacuum. Next, they condense a little 
ether into what, w r ere it a visible body, mortals would 
call a stout rod. With this rod they lift the object, by 
pushing from below. Like most ether phenomena 
produced by soul-force, levitation depends upon a suf- 
ficiently electric mediumistic aura ; proper conditions 
in the room, the electric, magnetic and hygrometric 
states of the atmosphere, and the condition of the 
medium and the persons present in the room. 

When departed souls lift a table weighing ten 
pounds one foot high against gravity, the work done, 
or energy expended, equals ten foot-pounds. Strange 
as it may seem, the work renders these souls stronger 
instead of weaker. 

More strange than such a phenomenon is the fact 
that people think it is strange. Two mortals lifting a 
ten-pound table between them would riot even make a 
news item. The table rises, i. e., is lifted, in either 
case substantially by the same process. The soul, 
whether embodied or disembodied, condenses by an 
act of its will enough ether to produce currents along 
certain channels. In the case of the embodied soul 
the channels are nerves conveying the currents to 



56 Soul-Return 



certain muscles forcing these to contract, whereby- 
certain levers, i. e., bones, are made to lift the object. 
In the case of the disembodied soul the channels are 
lines of direction, and the currents cause condensation 
through which the will of the soul is executed. In 
both cases the object is lifted by the application of 
the same force, the same cause : the condensation of 
ether. 

The force called gravity or gravitation is not the 
cause but the effect of certain ether forces. An 
apple falls from a tree because a column of ether 
presses upon it in a downward direction. The reason 
why a table in the aura of a suitable medium may rise 
is : A column of condensed ether presses upon it in 
an upward direction. In the case of the apple the 
pressure is exerted by a differentiated force, greater 
in the downward direction ; in the case of the table 
the pressure is caused by a differentiated force greater 
in an upward direction. 

A rap is a manifestation resembling levitation. 
Under favorable circumstances it sounds like the con- 
cussion between two solids such as a knuckle and a 
table. A rap is produced as follows : The aura of the 
medium, or a portion of it, is concentrated into a small 
space such as the size of a fist, and condensed into a 
mass or lump resembling the solid state. With the aid 
of certain currents the lump so obtained is made to 
strike some resisting object such as a table or a wall. 



Soul-Return 57 



When a mortal strikes a table with his fist the 
process is similar. Currents are sent to his hand 
making it into a fist, which after passing along the 
usual channel produce the motion and the blow. 
Mortals operate with soul-currents and with solid 
bodies such as flesh and bones; whereas the disem- 
bodied soul operates with soul-currents and condensed 
ether. And as all substances are condensed ether, 
such operations, whether performed by embodied or 
disembodied souls, are virtually alike. Whether to- 
day the reader lift a table as a mortal or to-morrow as 
a spirit it changes neither the phenomenon nor its 
cause. Nature's methods and operations are ever 
the same ; she changes only the form they present to 
mortal senses. 

Another soul-phenomenon, Slate-writing, has stirred 
the world's enquiring mood. 

Take a few pieces of paper; write a question or 
message on each ; address it to a departed soul ; fold 
the papers each into a conveniently small size, and 
put them into your pocket. Purchase two framed 
school-slates ; clean, and take them to a good instru- 
ment of the writing phase, i. e., a writing medium. 
In his presence keep the slates within your reach 
and control. Presently writing will be heard between 
the slates, and when it has ceased the slates are found 
to contain written messages. These may be direct 
and lucid answers to those questions ; or vague and 



58 Soul-Return 

commonplace, suggestive of Hotspur's words to M01 
timer, « He's as tedious as is a tired horse." This 
depends upon the quality of the medium's aura; his 
development ; the condition of the sitter and other 
conditions and prevailing circumstances. If the medi- 
um's aura is very strong, the slates may contain por- 
traits or pictures in chalk, slate-pencil or oil. 

As in such cases tricks or conspiracy can form no 
part of the usual attack or contesting argument 
waged by the undeveloped or skeptic, the reader nat- 
urally asks : How are such phenomena produced ? 
We answer : By a process not unlike the one mortals 
employ who use pen, pencil or brush when they write, 
draw or paint. 

Slate-writing is a result of the proper manipulation 
of particular currents. Controls condense ether into 
a short tool that resembles a material rod, or brush, 
and operate with it in the dark space contained be- 
tween the two slates. The tool is not infrequently 
rendered visible by the aid of materialization. 

Sometimes the answer to a question is found 
written in a material that was not placed between the 
two slates, as, e. g., colored chalk. In such a case 
one of the controls gathered this material in the 
gaseous state, perhaps as sunbeam dust, and inserted 
and used it. Not infrequently an answer is found 
upon the slates written in gold, which metal was 
taken from a gold watch or coin in the possession 
of the sitter or medium. The watch or coin, if 



Soul-Return 59 



-weighed accurately before and after the writing, 
will be found to have lost in weight by whatever 
quantity the invisible draughtsman used for the 
manifestation. 

As a rule, slate-messages are written by a soul con- 
trolling the sensitive fibres of the medium. Similarly, 
mundane telegrams are delivered in the handwriting 
of the operator at the receiving station. 

This phase of mediumship, to distinguish it from 
that of Automatic Writing, is called Independent 
Writing, because it does not depend upon the me- 
dium's hand. 

Another remarkable phase of soul-labor in a medi- 
umistic aura is that of Automatic Writing. 

The pages of this volume, as also his other books, 
are written by the writer automatically. He uses a 
lead-pencil which is in his right hand, and is conducted 
by two departed souls that alternate with each other 
in this work. They are the Authors of this book. 
During their last earth-life they were literati. For 
more than a hundred years they have inhabited the 
Beyond. To a departed soul the pleasure of writing 
with a human hand again is as great as it is rare. 
When writing these lines our instrument knew as 
little of what followed in the text as we, the two 
souls just mentioned, know of the Polar Star. 

Continuous and systematic writing such as the 
present, carried on through the agency of a mortal 



6o Soul-Return 



hand, is confined to the souls inhabiting the divine 
or perfected spheres. It is a species of work of so 
high an order as to exceed the powers of earth-sphere 
souls. Whatever such forces write automatically em- 
bodies the truth, provided the writer is a well-devel- 
oped soul, which is fortunately true of our friend. 
Lower-sphere souls often attempt to write through 
human hands ; but at best they succeed but poorly. 
The meagre quantity, the silliness, the lack of style 
and the common theme of their productions betray 
the source. 

Some day volumes will issue on this phase of medi- 
umship without exhausting its bare outlines. To be 
well utilized and continuously applied it requires a 
well-developed mediumistic aura, and an exceedingly 
fine, homogeneous aura-tissue, such as is seldom found 
in a mortal. Even the greatest medium that lived 
within the memory of the oldest souls in our zones, 
which memory parallels Abraham's sporting days, was 
without this phase. 

It is equally fortunate that our friend enjoys the 
daily companionship and communications of his spirit- 
wife, who is also a well-developed soul. She attests 
the communications he receives from the Beyond; 
she verifies the genuineness of his automatic writings 
at every sitting at which they occur. He has 
had incontrovertible tests of her steady attendance 
upon him in countless instances, at his home and 
elsewhere ; the tests comprising family matters, 



Soul-Return 61 



occurrences during their married life, and many other 
items unknown to third parties. We also state that 
he is unacquainted with Psychology and the litera- 
ture on soul-facts ; nor does he know from one day 
to the next what we are going to write through 
him. 

Our visits for the purpose of writing in his aura 
occur almost daily, at such hours as he and we are at 
leisure. After arriving in his aura we impress him to 
seize a pencil and to lay paper before him. Then we 
gather up his entire aura, which has a radius of about 
two hundred and fifty feet, and concentrate it upon 
the paper. The paper thereby becomes a power-field. 
His whole aura is now concentrated upon the paper 
in front of him. Then we condense certain portions 
of it more strongly than others, and proceed just as 
mortals do when they write. We manage his hand 
as if it were our own. But a person looking on would 
believe from appearances that our friend had no one 
with him, and that he was writing alone. 

Scientific facts and literary items occurring in the 
text we find in the library of our friend. And now a 
few words of a personal character : 

" We, the Authors of this book, were Englishmen 
during our last incarnated life. We have not for- 
gotten the language we spoke and wrote in those 
days. It stands us in good stead now. We might 
write in any other language through this instrument, 
with occasional assistance in the case of out-of-the-way 



62 Soul-Return 



tongues. But were we to use a language unknown 
to him much force would be lost in arranging words 
and sentences, and in a language like the Chinese 
also in making the letters of the alphabet, which 
would involve a waste of time, a loss of force, 
which in our regions, where force is a precious article, 
would be a serious matter. Whatever fun mortals 
get in their earth-days is paid for in money. For the 
fun we get we must pay in force. Mortals are ever 
anxious to lay up money ; we are ever anxious to save 
force. Mortals think they are nobodies without 
money ; we know we can do nothing without force. 
In our corner of the universe, which is totally unlike 
the Poets' Corner, force is in great demand and at all 
times eagerly sought. Nature seems to possess but 
a limited quantity of it. Sometimes we undergo a 
scramble to get enough of it to enable us to come 
here and do something we can enjoy. 

"If the reader were clairvoyant, and on a visit in 
our friend's room, he would think it was a kind of a 
show. Our friend is the only mortal there. Next comes 
his oil-lamp. Then come we two ; and last, the big 
audience of a thousand or so of disembodied squatters, 
all of whom are ' sensing,' or, to use a slang expres- 
sion quite in vogue in our < lifetime,' ' nosing ' ; that is, 
trying to get a peep at what is going on. Some of 
them succeed ; but the majority prefer to go where 
they can hear, select their bed-fellow from the pit and 
escort him home for the night. 



Soul-Return 63 



"The reader has been led to believe that the 
1 other side' is idyllic, angelic, and full of the Lord. 
When he comes over to us, as some day he must, his 
disappointment will be great. More than once will he 
exclaim : ' Give me back my body ! I will stand on 
the housetops and proclaim what I know . . . only 
for an hour give me back my body ! ' But even this 
one hour will be denied him. Nature is inexorable. 

u Our advice is : Take the best, the grandest, 
noblest care of your body. You will not get another 
one precisely like it . . . never ! Who knows what 
sort of a thing your next body will be in a couple of 
hundred years ? Keep what you have as long as you 
can, and disregard aunts and soothsayers. When 
these come over to us, they do not know enough to 
stand up straight against a fence. They make us 
great trouble. Caesar and the Ides of March are 
nothing compared to them. 

" Perhaps you would like to hear a little more on 
this subject from us; but the forces are weakening, 
which means that our funds are gone. Credit is 
nihil over here. This is a spot-cash country. If 
you enter it without good deeds and kind thoughts 
for even your most ignorant enemy you must long go 
hungry. Nature will not feed you until your aura is 
cleansed, and an aura is not cleansed in a day. I 
could go on until to-morrow, but our friend's lamp 
burns low, and he is sleepy. My name you need not 
know. My companion left me a few minutes ago ; I 



64 Soul-Return 



shall join him presently. Repay us for our labors by 
sending us kind thoughts ; mine you have already." 

We spoke of new conditions. Change of volume 
or form is a peculiar property of all ether bodies, and 
of unlimited occurrence. A departed soul is able to 
condense into a human form, of any size ; or into any 
other assumed form, such as a large ball or solid post. 
The capacity for condensing ether extends from the 
heavenly body that traverses space at the rate of a 
thousand miles a minute or more, at one end of the 
scale, to the microscopic infusoria. A marble statue 
is ether condensed ; its prototype, the living human 
body, is also ether condensed ; but the difference be- 
tween the two is : The statue is of common ether ; 
its prototype is of a much higher grade of ether, rather 
of a great number of different degrees and kinds of 
refined ether. These different grades of ether that 
make up the human body are coarse when compared 
with the high and sensitive quality of ether that com- 
poses the human soul. Were the ether of the human 
soul of a less exalted grade and quality, it could not 
produce nor be the means of producing the powers of 
the soul. For example, if the soul-eye were of an 
inferior grade of ether it could not produce vision ; it 
could not, e. g., see the grass as being green. For 
color is the result of vision operated by the soul. 
Nor could the eye perceive size ; that is, be capable 
of distinguishing the volumetric proportions of natural 



Soul-Return 65 



objects such as, e. g., the height of a tree. Color, 
size, distance, proportion, all sensory impressions and 
individual conceptions, result from the currents of 
highly refined soul-ether. 

The ether of the brain-aura is superior in quality 
to that of any other body-organ ; hence, the work it 
accomplishes is also more refined, subtle and com- 
plex. Soul-labor, from the tiniest detail to the most 
comprehensive operation, is performed by means of 
condensation. It may truly be said that the work of 
man on terra firma as well as his labors as a free soul 
in the spheres consists entirely in learning myriads of 
millions of different kinds, degrees and subtleties of 
ether condensation. The reader perhaps interrupts 
by asking : Why is it so ? To which neither Abraham, 
Solon, Zoroaster, Jesus nor any other advanced soul 
knows the answer. 

One of the greatest universal powers of the em- 
bodied as well as the disembodied soul is the power 
of materializing free ether, and of dematerializing it 
again. The sense of this statement is not disturbed 
by substituting the word « condensing " for materi- 
alizing. 

When a person is sitting for his photograph and a 
suitable medium stands close to the photographer's 
camera, the negative obtained may contain, beside 
the portrait of the sitter, the likeness of one or more 
departed souls. They may or may not be related to 



66 Soul-Return 



the sitter. A soul desiring to appear on the picture 
must condense sufficiently to be taken by the lens ; 
and it must know how to maintain itself in the focus. 
The outfit of clothes, which is also the product of 
condensed ether, usually resembles the apparel worn 
by the soul at some period of its earth-life. The 
photographer's lens is more sensitive than the human 
retina ; it transmits the rays of a slightly condensed 
soul although this soul is invisible to the ordinary 
eye. 

A most comprehensive illustration and meaning of 
soul-return is the materialization of entire human 
forms, i. e., men, women and children that walk, 
speak and act like human beings. Such materializa- 
tion is most important evidence of soul-return and 
soul-power. Indeed, the investigator who meets from 
thirty to fifty different human forms at a seance, 
nearly all of whom are recognized, has good reason 
for asking : 'i Who are the forms that come into the 
circle and talk?'' With equal propriety he might 
ask : " Who am I ? " for he is what every materialized 
form is, viz., a materialized soul. 

Materialization is a grand aid to a departed soul, 
because it helps the progression of the soul in the 
spheres. It helps the materializing soul far more 
than it helps the mortal friend whom the anxious soul 
is visiting. It depends largely upon the battery in 
the seance-room ; that is, upon the condition of the 



Soul-Return 67 



human elements that produce the fluid necessary to 
condense the gaseous materials from which the forms 
are built up. An ordinary battery for technical uses 
is a series of cells metallically connected with one 
another that generate a continuous current. Now, 
different purposes demand different kinds of batteries. 
One of the batteries in daily use contains carbon and 
zinc, immersed in a suitable liquid. These substances 
are purified articles, as the ordinary carbon and zinc 
of commerce would yield a poor current on account of 
their impurities. Now, at a materializing seance every 
sitter acts like an electric element, or cell ; the entire 
audience, or circle, acts as a battery immersed in the 
aura of the instrument, the aura taking the place of 
the liquid mentioned before. But the sitters are 
human beings, which means that they are not puri- 
fied ; comparatively speaking, they are more impure 
than the carbon and zinc of commerce ; and as bat- 
tery-material for materialization comparatively much 
more harmful. Their chief impurities are pork, beans, 
cabbage, tobacco, rum, revenge, hatred, greed, which 
make poor currents for materialization, poor currents 
for everything else. A circle of experienced u chem- 
ically pure " harmonious sitters, immersed in the aura 
of a good materializing medium, would produce as- 
tounding phenomena. 

In all materializing seances the forces should be 
closely economized; and as light-rays weaken the 
currents which produce the condensation of ether, a 



68 Soul-Return 



dark space, the so-called cabinet, is necessary, in order 
to retain and focus the forces. A large, opaque cur- 
tain hung across the corner of a room usually meets 
the requirement. 

Let us suppose that the reader is seated among the 
audience of a materializing circle, and that the curtain 
of the cabinet is parted by a manifesting soul claim- 
ing to be his demised father. The form presses his 
hand; the words come, "My son . . . my son!" 
after which the form dematerializes, and vanishes. 
A soul's first attempt at materialization taxes its 
strength to the utmost. If during its brief appear- 
ance the reader stands close by and criticises the 
man's nose and neck-tie, he polarizes his soul-forces 
and thereby weakens the form that draws on him for 
support. Any doubts regarding the identity of the 
form should bide their time ; at the next meeting 
the soul will be stronger ; and thereafter, at every sub- 
sequent reunion, it will increase in strength, and its 
appearance will be more natural. 

A woman buried her beloved daughter Anna. She 
wept when her Anna was laid away ; she kissed her 
pale lips and gazed at the dear face as she believed 
for the last time. A year later she accepts reluc- 
tantly an invitation to a materializing seance. She is 
called to the curtain ; unwillingly she leaves her seat. 
She meets a white-clad trembling girl ; the funeral 
tears are forgotten. The girl whispers " Anna." It 



Soul-Return 69 



is her Anna, craving her mother's love, deeming it a 
privilege to don mortal attire. But the forces are not 
strong, owing to poor conditions, especially to her 
mother's having a recent undigested newspaper item 
on fraudulent manifestations in her head. It is sur- 
prising but true : The mother is more anxious to dis- 
cover fraud at the seance than to find her daughter. 
She stares at the girl, and with a chilly gaze exclaims : 
" No, you are not my Anna. My Anna had a larger 
nose, and a different face altogether . . . you are a 
fake! " Then she groans contempt, and in resuming 
her seat she says she feels ashamed to be in " such a 
place." 

In silence Anna dematerializes. She sighs and 
shivers as the last vestige of her condensed ether 
passes into its original state. The shivering of a dis- 
embodied soul is serious. It means pain of the soul- 
body ; not inward cold, but inward fire, the fire of 
cruel, inordinate pain. " Control," says the trem- 
bling girl, after her material garments have dissolved 
and she is herself again, " are all mothers skeptic 
when their daughters come to see them for the first 
time with heart-burning love ? " 

"Nearly all, dear one," is the answer; "the body 
once laid away, their love is a straw-fire ; the ashes 
soon scatter." 

Anna's mother knew the human soul only from 
hearsay, even the hearsay being dim. Her Anna's 
nose and cheek-bones were built on the specifications 



70 Soul-Return 



of mother's face, and lay in the ground. Anna, when 
manifesting, was inexperienced ; unsupported by her 
mother, and hindered by the hurry and bustle of the 
cabinet-work ; which accounts for the hasty sketch 
of her former nose and the absence of a true copy 
thereof. The face she showed her mother was never- 
theless true, for it was her soul-face. One's mortal 
face is never the soul's true face, and therefore not 
the true face of the individual, for incarnation's pre- 
natal, parental decorative patterns change the soul- 
face. The reader's soul-face, could he behold himself 
disembodied, might prove to his great surprise a total 
variance from his last photograph. 

Anna possessed a mortal face in every one of her 
previous earth-lives. Supposing that she experienced 
forty earth-lives, then she had forty mortal faces, no 
two of which were alike. Her last mortal face was 
the only one her mother knew. We stated that there 
is nothing in a name ; the reader now hears that 
there is nothing in a mortal face. 

In his effusion on Labial Expressions Schopenhauer, 
in his " Parergaand Paralipomena," II, p. 509, illumines 
his subject with currents of too short a range to attain 
soul-truths. 

But where a manifesting soul is given time and 
favorable opportunities or conditions, its materialized 
face may be remarkably true to life. At a course of 
materializing seances we saw the writer frequently sit 
near an elderly lady who was familiar with soul-facts. 



Soul-Return 71 



Later she fell ill ; ceased to attend the circle, and 
passed away, all of which happened within three 
weeks. Shortly after the funeral he met her again in 
the seance-room where as a mortal she had spoken to 
him last. Now she was a soul returning to earth for 
a visit. Her features were pale but natural and " life- 
like," owing to prevailing good conditions, to her pre- 
vious knowledge of soul-matters, and her long investi- 
gation of psychic phenomena. In her case transition 
was little more than a change of place. 

Recently the writer conversed with a mediumistic 
friend on the street. Three days later they met 
again, in a seance-room; this time the friend was a 
materialized soul, having died suddenly since that 
conversation. 

At another time the writer attended the funeral of 
a relative twenty-four years old. A week later, at a 
seance in another town, he saw her again. She was 
fully materialized ; she mentioned her untimely transi- 
tion, her little children that were left behind, and other 
matters. Her face had a silvery hue; her features 
corresponded with those on her photograph in the 
writer's possession. In her case a fortnight com- 
prised three phases : Life in the body ; transition ; 
soul-return. 

Nature requires about twenty years to produce an 
adult human body capable of living, say, to the age of 
sixty ; and about five minutes to produce a body capable 



72 Soul-Return 



of existing about fifteen minutes. Now, twenty is to 
sixty as five is to fifteen. The natural as well as the 
artificial human form results from ingredients, auras, 
material compounds and psychic forces. 

If the materializing medium is in a deep trance 
during the manifestations a rude or sudden awaking 
may imperil his reason, his health, even his life. 

The psychic power of most materializing mediums 
is of the physical order, and their controls are mostly 
physical souls. If their aura is crude, it may render 
the medium crude, which, however, need not harm 
the manifestations. But psychic influence is power- 
ful. An earth-bound soul, for example, that has been 
in its miserable condition for a thousand years or 
more, still possesses all the notions, tastes, views, 
cruel traits and abominable practices of the days of 
his last incarnation, and if he can, will impress them 
upon any mediumistic mortal whose soul is harmoni- 
ous to, and of nearly the same composition as, the 
earth-bound soul. Like and like attract each other. 
This tends to render the mortal a criminal, and to 
make him commit the deeds which the harmonious 
earth-bound fiend committed in his last incarnated 
life. The deeds of the mortal will naturally be suited 
to or fashioned according to modern doctrines or 
brain-aura habits. Crude-physical souls impress a 
crude medium to hold seances as frequently as twice 
a day, which is an enormous drain on the human 
constitution; and to replace his sinking powers by 



Soul-Return 73 



fraudulent means. The most common fraud of ignorant 
materializing mediums consists in introducing into the 
cabinet mortals hired to represent departed souls. The 
mortals alternate with the genuine manifestations. 

If during a seance the forces of a medium weaken, 
most souls in the cabinet refrain from materializing. 
In order to save what little force is left, a soul, which 
we will call A, may take control of the medium and 
then manifest to the sitters. A is now in possession 
of the entranced medium, and states to the audience 
that he is A. That is, A has no form of its own, but 
uses the body of the medium. This species of mis- 
representation is called Transfiguration. When sav- 
ing the medium's strength, it is perfectly acceptable 
to experienced seance-goers, as the presence of their 
loved one's soul is more important to them than their 
loved one's artificial body. But skeptics and begin- 
ners worship the artificial body, and are enraged at 
what they consider a fraud. 

But transfiguration becomes substitution when A 
is crude-physical, and, while controlling the medium, 
presents the medium not as the materialized soul of 
A, but as the materialized soul of some other particu- 
lar departed. In such a case both the soul and the 
body are false ; the operation is a spirit-fraud. 

A materializing medium, to maintain his forces 
against the deteriorating influence of depraved souls, 
should hold only one or at most two sittings per week, 
and refuse admittance to all sensationally inclined 



74 Soul-Return 

visitors. Materialization is a complicated process of 
nature, too lofty for ruffians. And instead of receiv- 
ing financial compensation from the audience, the 
medium should receive pay from an Association for 
the Protection and Support of Psychic Instruments. 

Materialization requires the services of departed 
souls that are fond of the labor it entails. They sub- 
divide into small bands. As a rule, two or more con- 
trols take charge of the personnel and dispense the 
explanations and answers to the audience. A few 
spirit-chemists collect materials in the gaseous state, 
from which they prepare the different wearing-apparel. 
These materials are preserved from one seance to the 
next. Most materialized female souls are robed in 
white, squaws excepted, who prefer colored garments. 
Departed wives, mothers or daughters often beg the 
controls to make them some particular piece of finery 
as a test for some loved one. Male souls select some 
article or special apparel to awaken recollections of 
social fellowship in the mortal they expect to meet. 
The same "lump of dough " may do duty for an entire 
season, mould the body of a former emperor, or that of 
a millionaire or beggar; which recalls Omar Khay- 
yam's verse : 

" A potter near his modest cot 
Was shaping many an urn and pot ; 
He took the clay for the earthen things 
From beggars' feet and heads of kings." 



Soul-Return 75 



Another band of souls collect, preserve and prepare 
the ingredients necessary for the condensation, or 
"manufacture," of the forms. The materials for 
them are collected at various times and sundry places ; 
they are made into a nameless mass of a consistency 
between the gaseous and the ether state, in which 
condition they are taken to the seance room for pres- 
ervation. During the seance the mass is converted 
into flesh and bones, sinews, nails, hair, i. e., into 
forms. The conversion is accomplished by the aid of 
the condensing powers of the materializing souls. 
The process is as natural as the making of silk by 
the little silkworm. 

The body of a mortal infant is formed before birth 
with the aid of the powers of the infant soul. In 
some respects its production is not unlike that of a 
form in a medium's cabinet. But the infant body is 
constantly nourished, while the materialized form pro- 
duced within the medium's aura receives no nourish- 
ment and is constantly exposed to flesh-dissolving 
currents, which begin the disintegrating work in the 
cabinet from the moment the artificial form is com- 
pleted. Besides, the infant before leaving its " cab- 
inet " is not struck by light-rays ; while the material- 
ized form is weakened by faint light -rays even ere it 
issues from the cabinet. 

A very important point is the question of time. 
At a seance the forces of a good materializing medium 
last about one hundred and fifty minutes. The controls 



76 Soul-Return 



desire that every sitter shall receive at least one 
ethereal visitor, which in a circle of twenty persons 
would allow each sitter seven and a half minutes of 
time ; that is, if one form should need seven and a 
half minutes to make up, the person it is intended for 
would get none other. But a sitter may be called 
upon by as many as seven or eight forms at one 
seance, which proves close economy of time in the 
manufacture, growth and outfit of the forms and the 
multifarious steps and details connected with the work. 
While one form is before "the footlights/' others are 
preparing. Where materials abound amid favorable 
conditions, several forms may be "out" simultane- 
ously. To our knowledge seven materialized forms 
were once on the floor of a seance-room together. 
When the stock of materials is low, the clothing is 
poor ; the forms must borrow each other's wardrobe. 
Every cabinet "in action" is crowded with ethereal 
spectators and hangers-on. 

A control having charge of the personnel cannot 
make up the "dough " for the forms save after a spe- 
cial, long-continued practice. Nor could a member 
of the band of spirit-chemists perform other duties 
in a materializing cabinet without learning a " new 
trade." Nature practises a division of labor. 

As a rule, the supply of light at a materializing 
seance is regulated by a little curtain in front of a 
lamp stationed opposite the cabinet. From the curtain 



Soul-Return 77 



a string passes to the interior of the cabinet, and is 
pulled by a control to increase or decrease the sup- 
ply of light. A soul manifesting for the first time 
suffers greatly from the effect of light-rays, as they 
tend to consume or dissolve the currents that con- 
serve and maintain the materialized form. To save 
its strength the controls darken the room by lowering 
the curtain. A more experienced soul can sustain 
more light ; that is, can resist or neutralize light-rays, 
and in such a case the controls admit more light by 
raising the curtain. Under great outlay of force a 
form may be maintained and supported in bright 
light ; occasionally this feat is attempted where the 
manifesting soul can stand such light ; the effect is 
extraordinary. To walk the streets in daylight a soul 
would require a quantity of force beyond the capacity 
of any now living medium. With progress in soul- 
science, however, and a combination of several strong 
materializing mediums such a feat is among the possi- 
bilities. The light-difficulty exists in nature not in- 
frequently, as in the case of substances that decom- 
pose when exposed to white light ; and in that of 
most seeds, which develop only in the darkness of the 
soil. 

Frequent materialization strengthens disembodied 
souls. But in order to give good tests the conditions 
in the room must be good. A strong soul will give 
good tests unasked. 



78 Soul-Return 



Materialization is a species of temporary incarna- 
tion, or the voluntary leap of an uncondensed soul 
into a gaseous mass, a proof that natural forces exist 
which as yet are unfathomed by science. It breeds 
men and women weak and strong, depending on 
momentary currents Whereas incarnation for life is 
the enforced amalgamation of a condensed soul with a 
foetus. It breeds infants weak and strong. At the 
end of a seance the mould is broken cold ; at the end 
of an incarnated life the mould is broken warm. 

Souls of long practice in materializing may act 
many a part on the floor of a seance-room. They can 
be weighed ; they can give counsel and advice ; laugh 
over a joke ; denounce a newspaper ; use the tele- 
phone ; tease young lovers ; welcome their successor 
in the marriage tie ; dictate their last will and testa- 
ment ; give their deposition ; sit for their photograph ; 
give the masonic grip ; talk philosophy and health ; 
play whist or chess ; take an oath ; accept summons 
from court ; sing a song ; and stroll with you through 
an adjoining garden. They may dematerialize an eye, 
and bid you insert your finger " in those holes where 
eyes did once inhabit." 

Younger materialized souls may entertain like 

" The noisy geese that gabble o'er the pool, 
Or playful children just let loose from school." 

But materialized souls never engage in eating, drink- 
ing, shaving, smoking, cheating, stabbing, shooting, 
sword-dancing, marrying, flogging or dying. 



Soul-Return 79 



Materialization proves the continuation of life after 
death. Until soul-conditions upon this planet shall 
improve, it will not be a vehicle of intelligence or 
seership. 

In the course of his investigations the student may- 
witness strange phenomena. Experienced souls ut- 
terly taciturn at a seance may appear very loquacious 
at the next, and deliver speeches on general subjects 
such as Free Will, Immortality of the Soul, Universal 
Peace or Ancient Prophecies. Less experienced souls 
may speak on topics formerly unknown to them ; at 
another time they may appear " buttoned up," mono- 
syllabic ; those loudest before, now reserved and reti- 
cent. These phenomena depend upon the condition 
of the resultant current of the human battery in the 
seance-room, which acts upon the vocal organs of a 
materialized soul. Its quantity is variable, depending 
largely on conditions. When it is large, the forms 
have a violent tendency toward conversation or 
speech-making. Materializing souls carry neither 
brain nor nerves ; their eloquence and themes of 
speech depend upon electric conditions, current-qual- 
ity and induced currents ; whereas mortal eloquence 
and themes of speech depend on electric currents, 
brain-traces, brain-aura currents, and currents from 
the ether spheres. Mortals with an excess of result- 
ant currents are born talkers, in exceedingly rare 
cases orators. Talkers, speakers and orators are 



8o Soul-Return 



animated by excessive quantities of the electric and 
brain-aura currents of strong electric and feeble mag- 
netic tension. Nearly all of them, therefore, are self- 
ish or earthy, advancing their ego regardless of their 
soul, their friends, their country. They frequently 
use the name of the Deity for their arguments and 
climaxes. 

Body-organs such as the human hand or tongue 
may be materialized separately, or condensed suffi- 
ciently to be felt or heard, although neither is materi- 
alized so as to be seen. Such invisible condensed 
ether tongues speak in a stentorian voice. 

We mentioned the peculiar sub-phase of etherializa- 
tion, i. e., the appearance of a soul in a white, trans- 
parent form speaking and acting as if it were entirely 
materialized. 

The limitation of this volume forbids a sketch of 
other interesting details and varieties of forms, lights 
or garments, which form a fertile field for future in- 
vestigations. 

Materializing seances depend upon the quality and 
personal equation of the instrument as well as upon 
the other items set forth. His electric currents are 
drawn upon for the following needs of materializing 
souls : 

i. The production of garments. 

2. The production of flesh and bones, i. e., of 
forms. 



Soul-Return 81 



3. The conversational attributes. 

4. The brain-aura functions. 

5. The emotional functions and desires. 

6. Involuntary or reflex movements and actions. 

7. Vision through the temporary physical eye. 

At the close of the seance these items disappear ; 
the actions of electric currents subside, and the func- 
tions of the medium return to their normal state. 

Contrary to the pedagogical maxim "From the 
Known to the Unknown," soul-investigation should 
start at the Unknown, viz., the soul in its disembodied 
state. It should then pass to the Known, the mortal 
Ego on life's material plane. Philosophical and meta- 
physical speculations are ill-fated, because they com- 
mence at the end instead of the beginning. Their 
authors are in the dark regarding the human soul. 
In their lectures and writings they omit the main 
part. To decipher and explain the character, quality 
and prospects of the material world, man should inter- 
rogate its psychic part, which unfolds and presents a 
thousand times as much truth as the analysis of mor- 
tal clay and its varied worldly activities, for the tools 
and instruments employed in such analysis are unclean ; 
they are tainted with the very imperfections that are 
to be investigated. Besides, mortals accept mere 
sensory impressions frequently as realities. 

Mortals practise the condensation of ether uncon- 
sciously ; mundane life is based largely upon it. 



82 Soul-Return 



Disembodied souls practise it consciously ; divine souls 
alone can condense souls for incarnation. 

Psychic phenomena will be investigated in the near 
future according to scientific methods, in institutions 
of learning unhampered by ancient Jewish thought. 
The motions, temperature and breathing of an en- 
tranced materializing medium, for example, will be 
recorded by delicate electric contrivances. The sitters, 
including the investigator and his staff, will be as 
nearly "chemically pure" as on this mundane plane 
human beings can be obtained or trained chemically 
pure. A materializing soul, when it steps to the front 
of the cabinet, will depress the platform of a self- 
recording scale and make a record in a book kept for 
the purpose, after the manner of travellers that enter 
their names on a hotel-register. Should the properties 
of the medium preclude writing, the soul may breathe 
its name into a specially constructed telephone, 
the message to be recorded by an assistant at the 
other end of the wire. Suitable contrivances will 
apply to other phases of mediumship. The greatest 
difficulty will be experienced on the mundane stage 
in obtaining a proper battery, i. e., a number of attuned 
sitters. A single mortal of the earth-bound class 
destroys the resultant current of a circle. 

Once a mortal battery of developed and dieting sit- 
ters obtained, it may thereafter be used as a means of 
testing mortals as to who is and who is not a soul of 



Soul-Return 83 



the earth-bound class. This will be done simply by in- 
serting the person to be tested in the battery. If his 
soul belongs to the earth-bound class of souls, the cur- 
rent will at once decrease in intensity. This may be 
detected in various ways ; among others by a needle 
free to turn on a central pivot. Such tests will serve 
to determine not alone who is earth-bound, but also 
the standard of any incarnated soul. The deflection 
of the needle will tell the quality or standard of the 
soul under examination. Thus will, in days to come, 
Science, i. e., systematized truth, separate the spotted 
and the dark from the white and the pure, according 
to the actual status or condition of the soul-aura ; and 
sit in judgment over the soul of man, free from fiction 
or imaginary criteria. 

At another place is emphasized the importance of 
recognizing the crude-physical, which unfortunately 
is incarnated in so many mortals. It has been 
thought that the minority of developed souls can be 
protected from the evil inflicted by the overwhelming 
majority of crude-physical souls upon this globe by 
the passage of laws and their faithful execution. The 
trouble with this mode of human defence against the 
never-ceasing horrors of the crude-physical lies in 
the fact that it is not the developed portion of incar- 
nated souls but the crude-physical majority that makes 
the laws and executes them ; so that the very reverse 
of what should be done obtains at present on the 
material plane of this globe, viz., the oppressive rule 



84 Soul-Return 



of the dark, crude-physical element of the psychic 
domain of nature. The result of its rule is appar- 
ent, and manifests itself in the miserable condition 
of nine-tenths of the human race. An early and 
speedy detection, therefore, of the incarnated crude- 
physical tends to ameliorate the conditions of earth- 
life. 

Soul-return includes the importance and greatly 
utilized phase of the Trance. When a trance-medium 
is in one of the many states between unconsciousness 
and full consciousness he delivers messages and nv 
formation from disembodied souls. By complete un- 
consciousness is meant that the medium's soul is re- 
moved from the body, and its place taken by the main 
control. A control is a disembodied soul that has tem- 
porarily given up its progression in the spheres for the 
constant attendance near, and sovereignty d^er, an in- 
strument. The ties between a mediumistic mortal 
and his main control consist chiefly of harmonious 
currents. 

Attempts at explaining trance-phenomena are mere 
guesses, after the fashion of authors that attempt to 
explain female beauty. 

Not infrequently some domineering crude soul 
overpowers the medium's control, dislodges the me- 
dium's soul, and for a brief time manages his vocal 
chords, which is one of the many tyrannical acts of 
the strong and powerful crude-physical currents of 



Soul-Return 85 



nature's psychic realms. Where, for example, a vis- 
itor desires to hear news from his deceased sister, 
and the entranced medium is heard to say, " Dear 
one, I am your sister Mary ... I am so happy you 
came," such a style of address in nine cases out of 
ten indicates fraud perpetrated by a crude, deceiving 
soul. 

Of a number of individuals standing in line, if 
each throws a stone with all his might, the distance 
passed over by each stone is proportionate to the 
projecting force, i. e., the force of the individual. If 
disembodied individuals besiege a trance-instrument 
each throwing currents at him with its maximum 
force, the power of every such current is proportion^ 
ate to the force of each soul. As crude-physical 
souls are strong, and crowd themselves forward at 
the expense of their less physical fellow souls, the 
currents impressing and tending to crush an unpro- 
tected, that is, undeveloped, medium are generally 
of the crude-physical kind ; in common parlance, of 
the evil. Only thoroughly developed mediums can 
neutralize or throw off this class of currents. (See 
Chapter III, page .) 

A soul that controls an instrument and gives its 
name as that of an archangel, saint or Deity is a 
lying abnormity. Nevertheless it may give correct 
tests. Souls that discourse unrequested on general 
topics without a preliminary special test are of 
the talkative order and should be suppressed. A 



86 Soul-Return 



controlling soul friendly to the sitter's departed loved 
one always gives a special test before it speaks. The 
following is the introductory part of a genuine mes- 
sage of a departed soul, given through a trance-me- 
dium. Its facts were fully recognized : 

" My dear, I am your wife. Do you remember, 
one day at our house on John Street, in the room ad- 
joining the parlor, you whipped our little dog ? He 
then ran away. On the following day we rode about 
in a buggy to find him ; and we searched for him a 
long time, but he was lost. Later you bought a sim- 
ilar dog, a terrier. A man brought him to our house. 
The dog growled at me when I first touched him. 
You paid five dollars for this dog. ..." 

An inexperienced intruding disembodied soul tak- 
ing possession of a medium might harm the me- 
dium. Few souls can safely manage an instrument 
with whose peculiarities they are not familiar. As 
the engineer of a locomotive prefers the exclusive 
use of his engine, so a control that has familiarized 
himself with the mechanism of his instrument, — 
an instrument subject to more changes and vari- 
ations than a locomotive, and destructible in the 
brief time of a minute, — anxiously avoids interfer- 
ence from strangers. In most cases therefore the 
messages are delivered by the control, not by the 
communicating soul. To receive communications from 
a trance-medium, a sitter should be alone in the 
medium's aura. Two or more simultaneous sitters, 



Soul-Return 87 



unless their souls be highly unfolded, enable invis- 
ible souls to injure the aura of sitters and instrument, 
and to vitiate results. 

If a test be indefinite the sitter should demand an- 
other ; it will be given him at once or at the next 
meeting. Tests are exhaustive ; sufficient force for 
two tests at one sitting is not always at hand. 

Every mortal should meet a trance-medium or an 
impressional medium at least once a week for coun- 
sel and advice. Such regularity prepares his aura for 
future currents, which will benefit him when counsel 
is specially needed and desired To illustrate : An 
estimable lady was asked in marriage. Naturally, she 
wished to know. Had she been in circuit with her 
ethereal friends, a brief sitting with a suitable instru- 
ment possessing her currents could have enlightened 
her. She accepted the offer. Later, things came to 
light that made her condition very unhappy. They 
were known in the Beyond prior to her fatal step, and 
could have been disclosed had she been instructed in 
soul-truths. — A man is about to select a partner in 
his business, for which he needs correct information 
and sound advice, which he will obtain if he has con- 
nection with friendly powers above. If he remains 
in trolley-contact with the currents that move his 
car, they will protect him against imperfect condi- 
tions of life, important oversights and unlucky con- 
clusions in matters of finance or personal affairs. 
But the intercourse with the spirit-world must not 



88 Soul-Return 



be carried on at haphazard ; nor should the results 
of the first or even the second sitting turn the 
scale, because these preliminary meetings hardly 
more than build the road on which the sitter's 
friends can reach him. 

The prevailing lack of soul-knowledge prevents 
the individual from appreciating psychic laws and 
higher currents. His insulated journey along worldly 
routes, often as in a dream, always devoid of wave- 
communications with the Beyond, has landed him in 
his present hapless condition. 

From time to time the daily press reports unusual 
statements of some person claiming to be a special 
envoy of Providence and uttering absurd or lofty 
things, according to temporary impressions. Such 
persons are physical mediums, often of a prophetic 
drift, as illustrated by the Prophets of the Old 
Testament. Nearly all such persons are ignorant, 
undeveloped, earthy, and a prey to the psychic forces 
they attract. Some are guilty of perpetrating fraud ; 
others, of violating established rules and regulations. 
They commit these acts under the influence of the 
same crude forces that cause the frauds and crimes 
of the rest of the incarnated population of the 
globe. They cannot conceal their acts and utter- 
ances, because being mediums they cannot repress 
impressions ; whereas the other mortals can and do 
conceal their fraud and crimes; for being less medi- 
umistic, the cunning of their brain devises means 



Soul-Return 89 



and ways of eluding the daily press and the laws 
of the land. In both cases the underlying cause is 
the same, viz., the influence of the crude-physical. 
And the effect is the same : Crime, violation of 
rules, and misery. 

Another phase of soul-return, or soul-labor, for all 
soul-return is identical with soul-labor, is Inspiration. 
A departed soul of high rank, well versed in poetry, 
philosophy, literature or other human lore may cause 
a highly mediumistic mortal to speak or write verbatim 
what such a soul wishes to say or write. Mortal auras 
admitting the inspirations of highly developed souls 
in direct and immediate manner, and expressing their 
language without in the least altering it, are rare. 
Two notable inspirational instruments were the Naz- 
arene as a speaker, and Shakespeare as a writer. The 
Lord's Prayer, for example, was given Jesus by inspira- 
tion. So negative and pure a medium was he that 
he could emit it verbatim. Nor did he know how he 
came to get it. Neither was Shakespeare aware that 
most characters in his plays were the inspiration of 
departed souls that caused him to write what these 
souls wished the characters to say. He wrote the 
inspired words as they came, without altering, modify- 
ing or changing them. 

Such perfect mediumistic auras, to which the auras 
of Mozart and Raphael may be added, permit the in- 
spirations of more than one divine soul. The words 



90 Soul-Return 



of the Nazarene, the plays of the Briton, the paintings 
of Raphael, and the compositions of Mozart are 
respective products of a number of divine souls. 
Most compositions of Beethoven and poems of Byron 
are inspirations of a smaller number of divine souls 
of a less exalted rank. The mortal " Creator " of im- 
mortal things who is inspired only by one high force 
is among the sidera minora in the constellation of the 
gifted. 

Next in importance is the phase of Impression. It 
permits brain-impressions to be transferred, altered, 
or modified by brain-traces and brain-aura currents. 
A small portion of Shakespeare's writings consist 
of brain-impressions, that is, impressions made upon 
his brain by disembodied souls of high rank or 
development, which were worked oyer in his brain. 
To illustrate : The argument " Mercy is heavenly, a 
blessing to the recipient as well as the spender, 
grand in beggar or king," was not an inspiration, 
but an impression that filtered through the poet's 
brain. In the brain it affiliated with the brain-traces 
and brain-aura currents. First, certain currents im- 
pressed themselves upon the poet's gifted brain. 
Under the laws of attraction they blended with cur- 
rents of the brain-aura containing similes and com- 
parisons, which the poet had collected by the aid 
of his extensive reading and learning, all of which 
evolved the well-known 



Soul-Return 91 



" The quality of mercy is not strained ; 
It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath ; it is twice bless'd. 
It blesseth him that giveth and him that taketh. 
Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown." 

Other writers were impressed with this theme at 
various times, but only the brain-quality, brain-traces 
and brain-aura currents of a Shakespeare could cast it 
in such a beautiful mould. 

Longfellow's " Evangeline " and Tennyson's "In 
Memoriam " are works of Impression, not Inspiration. 
The famous soliloquy in Hamlet, and Beethoven's 
Andante of the Fifth Symphony are combinations of 
Impression and Inspiration. 

Impression is original soul-thought modified by the 
human brain ; while Inspiration is original soul-thought 
independent of the brain. 

An impressional phase of a lower degree may be 
set forth by examples. A man before venturing a 
speculation consults an instrument that has no 
knowledge of his plans, yet tells him the facts 
bearing upon them, their future aspects, and the 
intentions of other persons regarding them. The 
expose is correct ; the prophecy becomes true. The 
reader asks : How did the medium learn the facts ? 
How did he make the prediction ? The answer is : 
The facts were impressed upon him by the sitter's 



92 Soul-Return 



invisible companion ; the prediction resulted from the 
laws of currents. 

Every mortal is accompanied on his terrestrial 
journey by one or more invisible friends that witness 
nearly all his acts and thoughts. In the case just 
mentioned they impressed the medium with the facts, 
also with the prediction, that is, with the current of 
facts about to happen. How do these currents arise ? 
How do the controls obtain them ? If a person has a 
seance with an instrument that possesses his cur- 
rents, that is, some ether remnants left over from 
former sittings — which are in the shape of currents 
attaching to the aura of the medium and held there 
by means of attraction similar to the currents of elec- 
tricity held fast on either side of the glass of a Ley- 
den jar — and he is to die in a month, the medium may 
address him thus : " I see something dark in your 
aura. Your vital forces are decreasing in a fixed 
ratio. They will be extinct on about the . . day 
of .... of this year." Which means that the per- 
son's body will die on that day. The decreasing 
ratio is obtained from the declining vitality, possibly 
also from other conditions of the sitter's currents, all 
of which is learned by the control. 

Most verified predictions of seers result from a 
combination of attenuate currents detected only by 
mediums possessing the rare gift of impressionability 
for these rarest or faintest of currents. The combi- 
nation of currents that make up a prediction is one of 



Soul-Return 



93 



the myriads of mysterious ether products of the free- 
ether world, unintelligible to the mortal reader by 
reason of his lack of proper tools to understand them 
with. 

In the case of a seer's realized prediction of an im- 
pending conflagration at a certain place, the combina- 
tion of currents that impressed the seer when he 
made the prediction consisted of ether currents ema- 
nating from the cause of the fire. Whether the 
cause of the fire lay in the brain-aura of a person in- 
tending to commit arson; or in a "live wire" close 
to combustible matter ; or in a defective flue ; or in 
the carelessness of a match-thrower, each cause, i. e., 
the brain-aura, the live wire, the flue, has its own cur- 
rents ; so has the aura of every substance connected 
with that cause. The ordinary mortal is blind to cur- 
rents or any of their combinations, but the seer is 
not; he can be impressed by the faintest of currents. 

Now, how does such a combination arise ? Suppose 
that the conflagration was predicted to originate in 
the petroleum-soaked floor of a certain designated 
room. What was it that produced a combination of 
currents causing the prediction ? The answer is : 
Owing to the perfect elasticity of ether its currents 
pass from their starting point to all parts of the 
earth's surface. So did the currents of the floor, the 
petroleum, the building, the incendiary, and the sitter. 
By a peculiar condition of harmony which is called 
Induction, these currents formed a combination that 



94 Soul-Return 



impinged upon the aura of the sitter ; the medium's 
controls translated the meaning of the combination- 
currents, and impressed the result upon the medium's 
brain, whence it was converted into speech. The 
building might have been twenty thousand miles dis- 
tant from sitter and instrument ; this would neither 
affect nor prevent the prophecy. On account of the 
inconceivable faintness of ether currents that emanate 
from the auras of objects, their impression upon 
mediumistic auras is at best but faint ; and auras are 
rare which cognize them correctly. Nor are such 
mediums well developed as a rule. This accounts for 
the present imperfection of seership-phases. 

An important species of Impression is the Psycho- 
metric Phase. It underlies the sensing or receiving 
of currents transmitted to the instrument by sub- 
stances or objects. If, for example, a person returns 
from a journey, and some article such as a sleeve- 
button he wore be submitted to a medium gifted with 
this phase, the medium can reveal acts and events 
that transpired near the person. From what has pre- 
ceded the reader will be able to explain this phase. 

Another of the many existing impressional phases 
of soul-return or soul-labor is operated by means of 
a small tumbler containing water, or by means of a 
peculiar crystal. If either object be held by a sitter 
in the aura of a suitable instrument, the instrument 



Soul-Return 95 



will focus his soul-vision upon it and see, clairvoyantly, 
condensed pictures of acts, things, events or persons 
directly or indirectly connected with the sitter. The 
pictures are made by the medium's controls, who for 
such work must be strongly physical without being 
crude. In addition to pictures the instrument may 
read conversations held in the past ; inscriptions on 
tombs or other objects at distant points as if they 
were written in the air. This phase is related to that 
of seership. 

Another phase of soul-return is that of General 
Impressions. They are sensated by a mediumistic 
mortal, and acted upon by him for good or evil. To 
illustrate : A man has been pondering over his financial 
troubles, and at last exclaims : « I have found a solu- 
tion . . . the end of my difficulties ! I am going to 
sell my home and move to X. . . ." His family in 
vain endeavor to dispel the " sacredness " of his im- 
pression ; he persists. A year later a collapse occurs, 
and he ends his mortal life by his own hand. It was 
a case of impression for evil by low souls. Owing to 
his ignorance in soul-matters, and the absence of 
weekly meetings with his ethereal friends, he, like mil- 
lions of his undeveloped mediumistic fellow beings, 
was unable to distinguish bad from good impressions. 

To a low soul, especially one of the earth-bound 
class, the destruction of human life is a source of in- 
tense joy, a sumrnum, boninn. Such a soul, aided by 



96 Soul-Return 



others, may spend years in pursuing a mortal of im- 
pressionable harmonious aura, which it will constantly 
impress. The victim finally destroys himself, and if 
he can, also others. A woman kills her children and 
then herself; a man shoots his wife and then him- 
self; obeying an " inner voice " a boy kills his bene- 
factor ; an orator incites a crowd to deeds of violence 
or revenge ; the ruler of a nation urges the conquest 
of an inferior foe. The man, the woman, the boy, 
the orator, the ruler, are the tools of earth-bound 
spirit-curs that impress harmonious incarnated earth- 
bound souls, whispering "Do it ... do it!" until 
the foul deeds are done. 

The voice of the incarnated soul often is called Con- 
science. It is always veiled or clouded, and frequently 
subject to the influence of crude currents of low souls 
that impress and perchance control the soul. The 
murderer's conscience whispers to him, " Commit the 
murder! " The thief's conscience urges him to steal. 
When the evil influences are gone, he may admit the 
deed, conscience-stricken; that is, new and better 
forces have taken hold of him. Just as in a seance- 
room materialized souls are influenced by surrounding 
currents, so are embodied souls influenced by currents 
of disembodied souls who labor or reside in their auras. 
Conscience may be the exponent of a bad soul or a 
good soul. 

To guard against impressions from unknown disem- 
bodied sources all sensitive or impressionable mortals 



Soul-Return 97 



should imitate the suspicion and delay which people 
use against the insinuations of incarnated strangers. 

Another phase of soul-return may be called the 
Locating Phase. When in good psychic condition 
some mediumistic persons can locate mines, water, 
gas, or other hidden substances in the ground. This 
phase depends upon the peculiar capacity of " sens- 
ing " the rare and attenuated currents that pass from 
the substances, i. e., their auras, through the inter- 
vening soil into the air, where they strike, or are in- 
tercepted by, the suitable mediumistic aura through 
which the information is received. The disembodied 
soul laboring in that aura cognizes those currents and 
impresses its knowledge of them upon the medium's 
brain. Locating mediums discover substances that 
are under ground usually in the night-time. Large 
and valuable mines have been located through this 
phase of mediumship. 

A phase abounding in information and peculiarities 
is that of so-called Physical Manifestations. They 
comprise many kinds of noisy demonstrations as well 
as silent manifestations such as the passage of solids 
through solid bodies without displacement of particles 
of the body entered or pierced. To illustrate : A 
handkerchief passes' through a thin board. It occurs 
as follows : The particles of the handkerchief are de- 
materialized, in which state they pass through the 



98 Soul-Return 



board. At the instant they emerge on the other side 
of the board they are condensed back again ; that is, 
rematerialized. The operation is carried on by a dis- 
embodied soul, and consumes no time, sensibly speak- 
ing. 

A multitude of phases of soul-return exist which 
rank between one and another of the phases here 
mentioned. All of them occur in a mediumistic aura, 
and are the work of departed souls. 

The compensation which disembodied souls receive 
for their labors in mediumistic auras is accelerated 
progression. The compensation received by the mor- 
tal instrument for lending his aura to the work ; for 
the depletion of his psychic and bodily strength ; his 
careful diet ; his persecutions at the hands of ignorant 
mortals, and the rapid decrease of his physical vigor, 
is usually a monetary reward, always small. 

The disembodied learn facts of nature they should 
have learned while yet living in the form ; the incar- 
nated learn facts of nature which they ought to have 
acquired in their younger days. Both learn from 
the only good, sincere and honest teacher of souls : 
Nature. 

The ratio of ten per cent of well-developed souls 
holds good also of the disembodied souls in the seven 
earth-spheres. In a physical sense the ninety per 
cent of undeveloped souls are stronger than the ten 



Soul-Return 99 



per cent. Their crude and crudest portion are ever 
present where they are not wanted, inserting them- 
selves between sitter and instrument, trying to spoil 
whatever they can spoil ; controlling instruments for 
the purpose of issuing false statements, fraudulent 
communications and lying messages. Their previous 
earth-lives failed to cure their deceit, insincerity and 
mendacious habits. While such souls may not all be 
bad, yet they are frauds imposing their presence and 
offering their insipid wares for the sake of performing 
labor in mediumistic auras and, as stated, for the pur- 
pose of harming others ; the performance of labor 
in mediumistic auras being the great desideratum of 
all earth-sphere souls. Most of them practised fraud 
in their incarnated life by cheating in selling goods ; 
deceiving in professional treatments ; telling false- 
hoods in their conversations, and blowing hot or cold 
to suit the crowd. Their funeral did not destroy 
their vices. The loss of their body does not involve 
the loss of their tricks. A profound liar buried 
is a profound liar still, and will remain such for 
ages. He will be even a more profound liar after 
transition, more effusive and dangerous, by reason of 
being less fettered. An eagle spreads his wings 
more broadly after he has escaped from the mena- 
gerie cage. 

In view of these dangers, the question has arisen, 
Is it not best to avoid all connection and intercourse 
with the Beyond ? We answer : No ! Man meets 



ILofC. 



ioo Soul-Return 



the same dangers after his transition. It is his duty 
to conquer the crude-physical while he lives in the 
form ; it is his duty not to shirk it. The coward here 
below will be a coward above, and there suffer from 
having been a coward before. In matters pertaining 
to the Unknown the truth is always preferable to 
hearsay and tradition. Even a medium's untruthful 
or nonsensical communications are true in this, that 
they are communications from departed souls. The 
student should seek the cause of such perversities 
rather than abandon his investigations. 

Through a well-developed trance-instrument the 
oldest souls may communicate, if there is sufficient 
power. But not in a crowd, because in a crowd the 
forces are mixed, and all resultant or cumulative cur- 
rents physical and of vicious effect. 

Ancient souls like Zoroaster, Solon or Abraham 
can address only one mortal at a time ; under the 
best conditions perhaps a very few persons of harmo- 
nious currents. The pleasure and influence of direct 
communications from such lofty sources is indescriba- 
ble. When the Disciples were told that Jesus would 
be present where two or more of them should be to- 
gether they correctly understood not Tom, Dick and 
Harry, but two or more mediumistic persons as all 
Disciples were. Zoroaster requires more force in 
order to manifest than Marcus Aurelius ; either of 
them needs less force than the Nazarene, because the 



Soul-Return 101 



Nazarene's soul-body is more attenuate. His visits 
on terra firma are rare ; he knows that they require 
from sitter and instrument a tremendous sacrifice of 
force and currents. 

Every mortal soul should remember, that in passing 
along the public walks of cities he moves in a throng 
of hurrying departed souls, many of which annoy 
mediumistic passers-by and escort mortals whose 
company they particularly enjoy. On the highways 
of New York, London, Paris or Berlin the stream of 
invisible beings is larger than that of the visible 
ones ; a good clairvoyant often finds it difficult to dis- 
tinguish between the incarnated and the disembodied 
that pass by him. If a mediumistic person attempts 
to answer the numerous calls or questions which the 
invisibles in the street by word of mouth, impression 
or other agencies address to him, he is a donkey in 
soul-matters, for his responses attract their worst ele 
ments so surely and securely as to affect his mental 
sanity. The intercourse with the Beyond belongs to 
one's home. Not a few cases of mistaken zeal and 
false development have ended in suicide or insanity, 
owing to the dense ignorance in soul-matters so fre- 
quently displayed. Because of such calamities to 
reject a knowledge of the soul and of life's primeval 
purpose would resemble the abolishment of windows 
in buildings to guard the inmates from falling upon 
the street. 



io2 Soul-Return 



The frequent occurrence of table-tippings and raps 
may serve as an illustration of mortal foolishness. A 
sitter asks a queston ; the table tips an answer. 
This answer is seldom correct. The forces producing 
such manifestations are of the coarsest physical kind ; 
the answering souls of this class delight in misinform- 
ing, misdirecting and defrauding the sitter. No reli- 
ance should be placed in the intellectuality of these 
and similar classes of physical phenomena. 

A well-developed incarnated soul is constantly an- 
noyed and resisted in its mundane operations by a 
majority of the raw ninety per cent. And a well-de- 
veloped disembodied soul is constantly annoyed and 
resisted in its ethereal progression by the raw ninety 
per cent of earth-sphere souls. On either side of 
the clouds the duel between brute force and the 
peaceable ten per cent is waged with intense vigor. 
In this respect as in many others there is small dif- 
ference between the two worlds. In the ether zones, 
away from the dross of earth and its illusions, that 
unceasing struggle is more conspicuous. Its full com- 
prehension by the reader would compel him to apply 
the method and practice of chemical analysis, viz., su- 
perior, well-constructed instruments, and chemically 
pure reagents. In soul-science the former are ob- 
tained by proper development ; the latter by a judi- 
cious conduct of life, including proper diet, on the 
part of the impurities, i. e., the sitters. 



Soul-Return 103 



Dogberry said, to read and write comes by nature. 
He knows now that there is one thing that cometh 
not by nature, but requires intense and profound study 
and research, viz., a knowledge of ether currents. 

We often speak of war, slaughter and bloodshed. 
They lead to the question, " What is the great impor- 
tance of blood?" Goethe, the great impressionist 
and lover of love, barely touches an explanation in the 
line, u Blood is quite a peculiar kind of juice" {Bint 
ist ein ganz besonderer Soft). His aura was one of 
magnificent force, but of inferior quality, which ac- 
counts for his wonderful imagery and impressions, 
and the singular absence of all inspiration. 

Blood is the staff of life. Its fumes feed the 
human aura. They produce aura-ether, and they 
replace waste aura-ether. If a man's diet is coarse, 
his blood is coarse ; and coarse blood engenders 
coarse thoughts. For example, if a man eats onions, 
his blood and aura become filled with onion fumes — 
a coarse dish for the human aura. So fares he that 
eats coarse fruit ; the flesh of warm-blooded animals ; 
heavy vegetables such as beans, cabbage, beets or 
corn. Heavy diet produces pernicious domestic poli^ 
cies, needless civil wars, needless foreign wars. The 
United States of America, the grandest attempt at 
a government by and for the people, was convulsed 
by a long civil war because of centuries of pork and 
beans. 



104 Soul-Return 



Ingredients such as alcohol, nicotine and gossip 
mingle with the air a person breathes. They make 
poor ether, on which his aura will be fed. Poor ether 
makes a poor man, a poor aura, a poor epitaph. If the 
blood of a freshly slain animal be placed in basins close 
to a person's home, he inhales its fumes, which will 
mingle with his heart's blood. Then will his heart 
feed his aura with animal blood, which begets a poor 
quality of ether. The same fatality is bred by bloody 
speech. Its currents flow to one's aura and deposit 
their poison there. 

While we are writing in our friend's room, the fol- 
lowing lines are given us by way of impression, com- 
ing from a soul that left the mortal plane of life nearly 
two thousand years ago and now lives in the highest 
divine sphere : 

" Dear Mortals : Alcohol, nicotine, gossip and in- 
flammatory speech spoil the soft, velvety, silken tis- 
sue of the soul by filling it with thistles and offal. 
Thistles are for donkeys ; offal for heedless mortals. 
Terra firma has no establishment for cleansing human 
auras ; and to cleanse them in the Beyond is expen- 
sive. True, there are in every city, town and village 
of this globe pretentious dyeing and cleaning establish^ 
ments, but to dye a soul does it no good ; and to clean 
it there helps it very little, because they do not clean, 
it right. 

" To manufacture good blood, the pure article, is of 



Soul-Return 105 



the greatest importance ; for a good aura, a good soul, 
cannot be thought of without good blood. The soul 
is what a mortal is, what he lives for, and what he 
takes with him when he mounts the train for the other 
side. It is his only baggage. He may have labored 
fifty years in accumulating gold ; the baggage-master 
will not put it aboard. He will admit your dog, your 
cat, your prospects, but not the sweat of your brow, 
the prize of fifty years of restless work : your gold. It 
must stay behind. But your best and only friend, your 
aura, is with you and will be with you when you awake 
in the Beyond. Goethe was right ; blood is an exceed- 
ingly peculiar juice. 

" Keep your health by confining your blood in its 
channels. Do not permit raw souls to talk it out of 
you ; and be fair with your fellow passengers ; allow 
them to keep theirs. Let peace reign in your blood, 
in your tongue, in your heart, in your soul. The years 
speed on, but your blood pursues an even course ; so 
does eternity. After you cross the line and rub your 
spirit-eyes, and are through taking in the garret, the 
gardens and the other good things which you there 
get for nothing, you exclaim : ' I wonder why my 
friends still in the flesh cannot see me now just as I 
am, and sell my picture just as I am. What a world 
of pleasure it would be to them ! ' 

" You are mistaken. Your picture would not sell. 
Eternity is slow; and human ways are slow. Ere 
your picture finds buyers you must sow, and see 



io6 Soul-Return 



things grow so as to get a fair price for it. What 
is a fair price ? The answer is : Good will ; kind 
thoughts ; patience and perseverance in hoeing round 
the growing plants ; and less reliance on the sun, the 
moon and the rain. In other words : Labors of your 
own; soul-industry a few minutes every day or at 
least every week ; and now and then listening to the 
rainfall as it occurs when the heavens ordain. Then 
will you get a picture of your soul as it appears when 
the Play is out, the audience gone home. It will pay 
any one to prepare himself for the picture, not for the 
illustration or the vanity of the thing, but for the 
high step he must take to get it." 

It is a comfort to know that when the Play is out 
and the actor has left the stage he is still somewhere ; 
he does not lie buried, but is still living and conscious, 
minus his old garment, his flesh-and-bone body ; and 
that the difference between the actor on the stage 
and off the stage is not more than that flesh-and-bone 
garment about which terra firma makes so much 
noise and confusion. For thousands of years certain 
professionals have taken pains to make man believe 
that he is a totally different being when he takes a 
bath from what he is with his clothes on. But souls 
visiting their mortal friends declare, that they are 
about the same they were when they still wore their 
earthy garment. Shall they be believed ? Why not, 
provided they are what they say they are, viz., the 



Soul-Return 107 



departed, disembodied souls of the respective egos 
that inhabited terra firma before they departed ? To 
become convinced of their identity requires time and 
patience. A mortal devoid of these requirements is 
devoid of the meaning of earth-life and its seriousness. 
But he that has become convinced of their identity 
need not hesitate to trust them, provided caution and 
prudence escort him in his dealings with them. In- 
tercourse with the departed differs but little from that 
with the living. 

The reader now knows that when the Play is out, 
it is not out at all, but is repeated at intervals. In 
these intervals the actors are at their homes, their 
spirit-homes in the spheres, and live there and attend 
to their progression. When the time comes for them 
to play again they are reincarnated, that is, dressed 
up again, whereupon they act again on life's stage. 
Their roles are hardly ever the same they were 
before. 

Does the reader find this strange ? If he does, his 
only comfort lies in the fact that others, too, have 
found it strange ; nor is incarnation the only strange 
item in nature's household. 

Let him beware of artificial notions concerning in- 
carnation, which from time to time emanate from the 
human brain. The human brain draws not from 
divine or perfected souls who know. Incarnation is 
not a matter of belief ; it is one of fact, of nature's 
facts. 



io8 Soul-Return 



Soul-return has a twofold effect. It reassures the 
human race that visible death means invisible life; 
and that the returning friends are its natural teach- 
ers and guides. It teaches mankind the temporari- 
ness of everything pertaining to incarnated life. It 
explains the noise and tumult of the material world ; 
it interprets the silence of the grave, the doom of the 
Physical, and the ultimate triumph of the Invisible. 



IV 



Psychic Fraud 



" Oh that deceit should steal such gentle shape 
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice." 

Shakespeare. — Richard III, Act ii, sc. 2. 

IN one stage or another mundane affairs and 
mental operations in the course of practical exe- 
cution, including medicine, jurisprudence, com- 
merce, agriculture, pedagogical and ecclesiastical 
lore, are mixed with or corrupted by fraud. The 
extent of human fraud is difficult to determine. How- 
ever large it may appear, the fraud practised by dis- 
embodied souls, often called Psychic Fraud, is greater 
than mortal fraud, far greater even than people imag- 
ine. The capacity for fraud on the part of disem- 
bodied souls of the crude-physical class, and the 
quantity of fraud they are capable of committing and 
do commit daily, eclipse the criminal annals of their 
mortal associates and victims. 

Fine opportunities for fraud are offered by the 
trance-phase. A fraudulent message delights crude- 
physical souls, they being the natural lovers of deceit 
and crime. They share the oft-mentioned desire, 
common to all departed souls : Labor in a mediumistic 
aura; but they are not conversant with the mode of 

109 



no Soul-Return 

conveying truthful messages. As on the boards that 
mean the world an Opera-Bouffe is more easily per- 
formed than a Heroic Opera, so on life's stage a 
fraudulent communication is easier to convey than a 
truthful one. 

Suppose that a mortal named Smith craves for 
information regarding his departed sister. If he be 
mediumistic, he may wait for her impression or other 
manifestation at his home. If he is not mediumistic, 
he must visit a harmonious medium. For the sake 
of illustration, let us presume that he has found one; 
that he is now in the medium's aura for the first time ; 
and his sister also is present. In all likelihood she 
cannot communicate with her brother on account of 
the presence of, and interference by, some crude-physi- 
cal disembodied soul anxious to perform labor either 
in the aura of the brother or in that of the medium, 
and unwilling to withdraw in favor of Smith. The 
crude-physical soul overpowers the medium's control, 
dislodges the medium's soul, and takes its place. It 
then gives Smith false impressions, wrong information, 
silly answers. This class of souls disregard honor and 
veracity ; they are mindful only of their own progres- 
sion, in the furtherance of which they commit the 
fraud. If the usurping soul is conversant with the 
visitor's affairs, as is often the case, the fraud in- 
volves danger, for where a particular portion, i. e., the 
first part of a message, is true, a visitor unacquainted 
with soul-facts and phenomena believes that the whole 



Psychic Fraud 1 1 1 

message is true, which may cause him great harm. 
Men and women are easy prey to the crude-physical, 
because they disregard the elements of soul-science. 
In other words, Smith, unless he be acquainted with 
soul-facts, is not aware that a strange soul gives him a 
false message in the name of his sister. He might 
avoid the fraud by insisting on a preliminary test. 
This would unveil the deceit, and in all likelihood 
terminate the sitting. 

A crude-physical deceiving soul operates with cur- 
rents that are taken, borrowed or stolen from some 
disembodied or incarnated soul or souls. The exer- 
cise of sovereignty over a foreign organism, such as 
Smith, needs, in addition to physical currents, a better 
class of currents than crude-physical souls possess. 
The usurping soul takes them from some other mortal, 
or from some disembodied soul. In the event that 
Smith should call again on the medium, and become 
a regular visitor in the medium's aura, and if his aura 
is developed, then that desired class of currents is 
taken from him. In such a case the usurping soul and 
Smith's soul form what is called a "battery." Other 
physical souls may be added to this battery. If the 
battery is a physical one, that is, composed of physical 
souls only, the force obtained from it may be powerful 
and capable of inflicting great harm. 

Another illustration of psychic fraud is the well- 
known fact that soon after the transition of some illus- 
trious person a message pretending to come from him 



ii2 Soul-Return 

is heralded through some medium. Such a medium is 
of the crude-physical order ; that is, controlled or read- 
ily overpowered by souls of that class. Aside from the 
fact that among illustrious persons of exalted position 
or rank but a very few are or ever were well-developed 
souls, able to awaken promptly after transition and to 
report promptly, it is unlikely that the notable " dead " 
so soon after demise would have become familiar with 
a harmonious instrument so as to enable him to give 
a message. Most such immediate messages come 
from some crude-physical disembodied soul bent on 
employment, or eager to cheat. The reader under- 
stands that such criminal souls do not operate the 
auras of well-developed instruments ; they enjoy the 
ever open door of poorly developed, ignorant instru- 
ments. 

Another species of fraudulent misrepresentation 
which spirit-frauds practise through poorly developed 
mediums consists in the control's assuming the name 
of some deceased statesman, artist or otherwise cele- 
brated person. This is done to gain importance. 
Crude, ignorant mediums take pride in possessing a 
famous control ; and many a deluded sitter is touched 
and elated when familiarly addressed by an archangel, 
emperor, king or president ; by Mozart, Shakespeare 
or some other distinguished dead. A prudent, well- 
developed medium will require satisfactory tests or 
sufficient proof ere permitting the use of its aura by 
strangers. Mediums ought to imitate the action of 



Psychic Fraud 113 

bank clerks requiring identification when a stranger 
presents paper for payment. 

If a well-developed incarnated soul be of solitary 
habits of life, he is, psychically speaking, unprotected. 
If he can be acquainted with soul-facts he will seek to 
become a member of a battery of equally well-devel- 
oped souls in the Beyond or here below. Regarding 
the selection of them he will seek the advice of his 
invisible friends. The mortal members of a psychic 
battery need not be, and in most cases are not, aware 
of their membership or even the existence of the 
battery ; for, as a rule, disembodied souls keep such 
things to themselves. The members may reside far 
apart from one another, even on different continents. 
Ether currents operate regardless of distance. Once 
a mortal battery formed, its members cannot be un- 
linked except by the application of superior physical 
soul-force. The myriads of millions and millions of 
myriads of ether currents close to the earth's surface 
form millions of batteries unperceived, unknown, un- 
guessed by the crowd. Yet are they as real and 
potent a tissue as is a netting of iron wire round a 
banker's vault. 

The space surrounding terra firma is composed of 
ether in a state of constant vibration ; each system of 
ether currents is an intelligence of its own, and at- 
tracts like or similar harmonious systems. The myri- 
ads of coarse, cheating ether currents possess greater 



ii4 Soul-Return 



physical power than the good or the less coarse cur- 
rents. This globe is enveloped by an ensemble of 
heterogeneous kinds of ether, each kind possessing 
its own system of currents. In the midst of the 
indiscriminate mixture of known and unknown en- 
tangled currents of different properties and velocities, 
immersed in their chaos, surrounded and impinged by 
all, yet instructed regarding but few of them, a 
stranger among strangers, is man — a sentient being 
among myriads of millions of sentient waves, con- 
stantly floating between the physical and the divine. 
Immersed in this heterogeneous entangled chaos of 
currents he struggles against physical odds ; against 
the tempests of the sea and the air ; the hurricanes 
of passions and the lust of crime. In the midst of 
this chaotic condition he finds and loves his companion, 
his treasures, his sorrows and grief. In the midst of 
his cares, his love and his crimes, he reflects in his 
children the fondness for life, the struggle for virtue, 
the aim to excel And later, still in the midst of 
his laurels and trophies, he lays away his form, and 
crosses the line unaided and alone except for his 
friends on high, whom among his tears and feasts he 
forgot to invite. 

A man cheats his fellow-men because some crude- 
physical element in his aura attracts crude-physical 
currents. This attraction depends upon the composi- 
tion of the body, the nature of the body-organs, the 



Psychic Fraud 115 

peculiar composition or condition of the brain-aura, 
and the condition of the general aura. But there are 
exceptions. Owing to their brain-aura some mortals 
cheat although they are well-developed souls ; and, 
vice versa, a few poorly developed or spotted souls 
may practise virtue owing to the aura of their brain 
or heart or both combined. Criminal fraud, theft, 
embezzlement, forgery, false promises and other de- 
linquencies owe their underlying intention or scienter 
to crude-physical currents. Whoever is partially sus- 
ceptible to them is of criminal intent, unless for the 
time being education, instruction or other ennobling 
agencies prevent. 

Fraud, then, may be intentional or not. The deceiv- 
ing human instrument may adopt it unconsciously, as 
if it constituted a part of his nature. His physical cur- 
rents may invite fraud ; his lack of soul-knowledge fos- 
ter it ; his greed for money perpetuate it. A review 
of the affairs of the world past and present discloses 
the fact that fraud is a part of man's terrestrial out- 
fit. 

The different kinds of psychic fraud that may pre- 
vail where a mortal seeks information from a departed 
soul are reducible to three classes, viz. : 

1. The mortal obtains nothing whatever, although 
he and the departed friend are close to each other. 

This phenomenon results from insulation. Some 
interfering physical soul insulates the mortal, wishing 



n6 Soul-Return 



to profit by his presence in a mediumistic aura to find 
work, no matter for how short a time, and to spoil the 
message, information or phenomenon. To spoil these, 
many a way is open ; the easiest is the insulation of 
the mortal. It prevents communication between the 
mortal and the departed. 

2. The mortal obtains a mixed communication of 
correct and false material. The correct data come 
from good sources, i. e., some developed soul; the 
false ones, from bad sources, i. e., from a soul unde- 
veloped or worse than undeveloped. Correct data 
may compose the first part of a message ; false ones 
the last part ; that is, the developed soul, after begin- 
ning to communicate, is interrupted and displaced by 
an undeveloped soul ; this soul immediately continues 
the message without any break, so that part of the 
message is correct, and the remaining portion — 
usually the last one — is false. Yet is the message a 
continuous whole. 

3. The mortal obtains an entirely false communica- 
tion, ostensibly from his departed loved one, in reality 
from a crude-physical soul that has displaced or neu- 
tralized the physically inferior soul. This frequent 
species of fraud is the source of much trouble and dis- 
gust. It is a victory of the strong over the weak; 
the fraud practised by the majority of mankind in the 
parlor, the office, the counting-room, the store, the 
political arena and other mundane fields of operation 
transferred to invisible fields. The same souls that 



Psychic Fraud 117 

deceive the anxious investigator practised the art of 
committing fraud long before they passed away. 
Their fraud in "after life" is but a continuation of 
their previous deceiving habits. We may call it the 
fraud of mankind, for it rules the globe. It includes 
illusions of the brain and mistakes of the heart. Body, 
brain, heart, the sum and substance of the human shell, 
represent the coarse or lower qualities of ether, the 
heaven of the crude, the hell of the developed. They 
produce the larger portion of the daily conversation 
and transactions upon the globe. By virtue of the 
principle of the attraction of Like and Like the human 
body is less harmonious to the developed soul than it 
is to the crude soul. Honesty, uprightness and sin- 
cerity are virtues of the developed soul ; dishonesty, 
pretended honesty and affected uprightness are vices 
of the shell and of crude souls. 

From time to time communications are given and 
writings published coming from crude-physical souls 
of the Beyond. They are conveyed through crude- 
physical controls. These controls, together with the 
souls with whom they associate, which are raw individ- 
uals of the same class, and from whom they obtain the 
knowledge concerning the higher and highest spheres, 
are densely ignorant of matters transcending their own 
low plane of ethereal life. Their ignorance keeps pace 
with their audacity and love of deceit. From their 
scanty stock of facts and phenomena they evolve 



n8 Soul-Return 



statements, theories and articles of faith regarding 
higher spheres, even the divine abodes, to neither of 
which they have access. They are guilty of invent- 
ing what they assert to be facts, and of misrepresent- 
ing what they claim to know. If the medium through 
whom this species of psychic fraud is manifested is an 
instrument of extraordinary power, born into favor- 
able conditions and specially fitting mundane oppor- 
tunities, and if he is supplied with a fine brain, he 
may found a religious system. He need not be wise 
like Zoroaster, nor intellectual like Confucius ; but he 
must be a powerful physical instrument, of the kind 
that rarely appear on earth. Mahomet was such a 
one. 

One of the greatest mediums and best-developed 
souls of all times, a soul which while still in the flesh 
was nearly fit to inhabit the divine mansions, was the 
Nazarene. His aura was free from everything crude 
or physical. 

It is a peculiarity of the crude-physical, that its souls 
disembodied or embodied, seek to enforce their brain- 
aura phantasms upon others ; that is, to rule mortals 
or the departed by false assertions, rude threats, and 
severe laws. 

The public abhors psychic fraud, forgetting that no 
science has escaped struggles against fraud, error and 
the physical resistance of dark forces. Much of the 
fraud prevailing in mundane affairs is overlooked, 



Psychic Fraud 119 

because fraud is considered natural, well understood, 
sympathetic, thoroughly human. The world should 
not grow excited over the fraud of departed souls, for 
until yesterday, when the departed were still here 
below, the public smiled away their fraud or covered 
it up. Until yesterday their movements, sustenance 
and development drew upon a flesh-and-bone body ; 
to-day they draw upon the mediumistic aura of a 
flesh-and-bone body not their own. Their physical 
fraud of yesterday was natural ; their psychic fraud 
of to-day is natural. At all events the interests of 
humanity are served better by a study of the (< other 
side " with all its fraud and falsehoods than by stoutly 
denying facts, soul-existence and soul-return. 

The fraud which sometimes intermingles with the 
truths of soul-science will be reduced greatly and de- 
prived of its obnoxiousness, whenever its true nature 
shall be fully understood. The intercourse with the 
departed will then be carried on as smoothly as to-day 
a plow furrows the field or a ship sails the ocean. 
The intercourse will be carried on under two funda- 
mental laws of soul-science, viz., the conditions of 
the moment, and the comprehension of the proper 
currents. They are the unseen, powerful motors of 
terrestrial life. The knowledge of conditions and 
currents enables man to be strong; the want of it 
compels him to be weak. The country whose condi- 
tions and currents are disregarded or unknown is 
weak, and its future uncertain. The country whose 



1 20 Soul-Return 



conditions are at all times well known, whose currents 
are at all times thoroughly understood, is strong. 
Human life should be directed toward perfected con- 
ditions and a sameness of currents. They make the 
ego feel at home with himself, and impregnate his 
terrestrial existence with the delightful consciousness 
of individuality. Man's individuality is the power 
through which he can resist ferocious currents that 
tend to destroy him. 

The male population of the globe shows a greater 
propensity to commit fraud than the female portion. 
This is owing to the peculiar intensity of the induc- 
tive forces of the currents of the male element. The 
meaning of the term "Wickedness " depends upon 
many elements of quality, quantity, intensity, and 
other properties of aura-currents and soul-currents ; 
to a great extent also upon the dominating or control- 
ling influence of the invisible tenant or tenants of 
the human aura. 

Psychic fraud consists of low, physical currents 
that affect mundane affairs, mundane souls and mun- 
dane conditions. To fear psychic fraud is to fear 
one's shadow ; to court it is to court one's body ; to 
overcome it is to triumph over the shameful compan- 
ion of the human soul. 

As the realms of invisible currents exceed in size 
the empires of visible worlds, so psychic fraud ex- 
ceeds the fraud committed by mortals. The one is as 
positive as the other. The invisible fraud clogs the 



Psychic Fraud 121 

suitable auras of mortals ; the visible fraud irritates 
and delays the suitable auras of developed souls. 
Ultimately all fraud must cease, and the well-devel- 
oped soul must triumph, may the cost be a million 
years. 

The opportunities for fraud are always present; 
the counter-efforts of the well-developed are never 
wanting. What is wanting is the instruction which 
the human brain should receive, in the truth of life 
psychic and physical, in order that the ego may justly 
appreciate the value of a gain of time in his develop- 
ment. 



V 

Physical Souls 

" The wickedness of a few is the calamity of all ! " — Syrus. 

THE term " Physical " as applied to the soul is 
difficult to define. It may mean material, 
earthy, worldly, coarse, bad, crude, wretched, 
infamous, or something worse ; or the char- 
acteristics of robust, hearty, strong, vigorous, ener- 
getic, referring to souls that are neither bad nor well 
developed, but possess something which, if properly 
wielded, is very useful to human beings. 

All bad souls are physical, but not all physical 
souls are bad. Many a seer-medium needs an enor- 
mous quantity of force that shall be sufficiently 
strong to overcome the physical resistance of physi- 
cal souls ; that is, of souls which without being crude 
or coarse possess a great quantity of physical strength 
or " fighting power/' The majority of such souls lived 
in their last incarnation in forms belonging to the 
race of Indians, Negroes, Hindoos, and others, that 
spent their days in the open air, whereby their souls 
acquired the resisting force so valuable to most me- 
diums. To illustrate : Our friend, the writer of 
this volume, could not obey us, nor could we use his 

122 



Physical Souls 123 

hand for writing, if we were not aided and assisted 
by a few Indian souls. In his arrogance the white 
man thinks these children of nature are easy sport for 
him and his gun. When he reaches our side he will 
find the tables turned. There the white man's soul 
is easy sport for them. The accursed ruler of hor- 
rible soul, who slaughters the children of nature 
because they wish to live unmolested, free and inde- 
pendent, after his transition begs on his knees of the 
very souls whose premature transition he caused, to 
lend him a friendly hand in getting him out of the 
swamps. To such horrible souls the delicate, sensi- 
tive ethereal tissue of a sweet, refined soul is as in- 
comprehensible as is the Fifth Symphony to an 
African savage. 

Nine among ten mediumistic mortals should discard 
the impressions they receive during their absence 
from their homes and they should reject those they 
receive at home that lack proper identification, as well 
as those they receive at home in the presence of other 
persons. For the impressions so received are inter- 
fered with by coarse, physical souls that are strongest 
out-of-doors, and where there are two or more mor- 
tals assembled together, and in crowded halls. The 
friendly, good physical souls that gladly attach them- 
selves to a mortal to help him are strongest at his 
home, in his private room, which we call his soul-home. 
A mortal, be he the finest medium in the world, can- 
not always distinguish between good and bad physical 



124 Soul-Return 



influences, and should confine all receivable tests, 
messages and impressions to his soul-home, where his 
forces prevail. Whatever comes from his gift in 
public may be correct, but it weakens not alone his 
aura but also his invisible friends who mean well ; it 
strengthens the evil burden which nature imposes 
upon mediumistic mortals and unfortunately upon 
nearly all other human beings. The hut of the poor, 
the palace of the rich, the spirit-home of the departed, 
each is a soul-home where the ego's currents should 
reign supreme, where his departed friends and loved 
ones feel safe, free from interference. The human 
soul during its terrestrial journey needs the protection 
of a home, not the fictitious home of a club or hotel, 
but the true home of the ego's soul. 

To help man on his terrestrial journey requires 
more than the escort of developed souls. They 
resemble well-disposed friends who wish to erect a 
building for a charitable purpose but lack the necessary 
funds. In a physical sense they are too weak. If 
the reader's daily invisible escort were so saintly a 
soul as the Nazarene, yet without the aid of some 
physical souls the reader would fare worse than with- 
out His escort, because such a highly attenuated soul 
as He draws too heavily upon a mortal aura and takes 
away its strength. Genuine, i. e., true prayer, many 
years of practice in it under exclusion of light; and 
a high degree of harmony between Jesus and the 
mortal might attract Him to him ; but even in such 



Physical Souls 125 

an event from twenty to thirty highly developed phys- 
ical souls, notably of the race of the American Indians, 
must accompany Him, else little good and much harm 
would be accomplished, especially if the praying 
mortal were sick, in which case the Nazarene's visit 
without adequate protection by Indian forces might 
cause speedy death. Jesus is aware of His peculiarly 
rarefied soul-body and the enormous sacrifice of force 
His visits on terra firma require, and descends but 
rarely. We saw Him in our friend's room during the 
past year. When He dictated His life to him, which 
was before that time, His physical escort had been 
carefully collected. It consisted of several hundred 
Indians, some Negroes and Chinese, all of whom will- 
ingly suffered a depletion of their forces for the pur- 
pose of serving a lofty object. Notwithstanding this 
great help, the instrument was at times so worn out 
after writing that he could not maintain himself on 
his feet for a time. 

For manifestations in the aura of a medium the aid 
and assistance of well-disposed physical souls is indis- 
pensable. The rule is " Soul-labor in an electric aura 
requires the aid of the Physical." If the friends and 
controls of a mediumistic mortal are crude, they are 
physical in a bad and sad sense, tending to produce 
evil ; that is, to continue their ante-mortem habits. 
No evil is so great and far-reaching as that caused 
by crude-physical souls. On the throne, in the pul- 
pit, in the forum, in the sick-room, in the home, in 



126 Soul-Return 



professional transactions, in commerce and trade they 
disturb and molest, defraud and debauch whatever is 
pure. The destroyer of lives, the tyrant at home, the 
wrecker of nation s, the expanding demagogue, the 
friend of the whipping-post, the lying villain, the black 
sheep of a family, each is a crude-physical soul swayed 
by like souls that yesterday lived in the form. When 
the reader knows or hears of a person that caused the 
ruin of a family ; that wrecked the confidence of the 
public ; betrayed devoted friends, or disgraced an 
official position, he may be certain the person is a soul 
of the extreme crude-physical or earth-bound class. 

The main trade of a mortal is, first, to earn a living ; 
second, to get " ahead"; third, to prevent others from 
doing those two things. The prevention is carried^on 
in numberless ways, all of which are more or less 
idiotic, the most idiotic being that by which mortals 
are sent to early graves. The reason of this ought 
to be plain as daylight even to Chinese or German 
Boxers. Cutting off heads prematurely does not cut 
off the heads of the souls, but throws the souls into a 
state of unconsciousness, in which they remain for 
some time. Such a sudden death deprives them of 
their opportunity to finish their soul development in 
the electric of the body, that is, on terra firma; 
prevents them from earning earth-experience, and 
clogs the lower earth-spheres with ill-used, dissatis- 
fied, immature souls, whose trend is bad on account 



Physical Souls 127 

of the ill use to which they were put while living in 
the body. Their frightful condition, together with 
their growing consciousness of the harm inflicted 
upon them by their execution or their slaughter in 
war, makes even the better class of them sordid, ill- 
disposed, sour, hard to teach. And the accumulation 
of such souls in the lower earth-spheres increases the 
already burdensome tasks and labors of the higher 
and highest mansions. We might cite fifty further 
reasons and still leave the subject unexhausted. 

It has always been difficult to control the crude- 
physical. One of its most conspicuous, far-reaching 
and despotic forms is that of a combination of per- 
sons claiming to know the unseen universe and many 
of its distinguished souls and divine souls, although 
they have no communication with any disembodied 
soul. ' Their pretence springs from the literature of 
ancient bards. The crude-physical never contrived 
anything more complete and unique in the way of 
combination and organization. As a result, to take 
only a small portion of human history, during the 
past fifteen hundred years over a hundred million 
mortal lives were cut short in their development here 
below; the well-being of all the lower earth-spheres 
was tampered with ; inexpressible woe filled the 
higher zones ; many exalted souls in the divine 
mansions were crucified over again by the horrible 
influence of the resulting ether formations and 



128 Soul-Return 



torments because of the oceans of blood spilt in 
their name. The fatal effect of those crude-physical 
organizations consists in this, that they train and de- 
velop certain brain-aura currents in extraordinary 
proportions, which have produced the constant reign 
of terror alluded to. The blood spilt within that 
period of time by all the savages on terra firma is a 
small quantity when compared with the gigantic 
slaughter directly and indirectly due to the crude- 
physical solidified into a brain-aura demon. 

We have often criticised man's idea that might is 
right. In an impartial state of society the crude- 
physical concept of might would be unknown, except 
when referring to nature's physical forces such as 
storms, floods or the electric fluid. While human 
body-organs, including the brain, should have power, 
they need not possess might. The false standard of 
earth-life forced upon mankind by the crude-physical 
and its organizations causes the oppressive men-debas- 
ing and women-debauching poverty that prevails upon 
this globe. The crude-physical and its organizations 
interest themselves more in the preservation and ac- 
cumulation of wealth than in the welfare of impov- 
erished humanity. A knowledge of soul-return and 
life's true purpose will lessen human greed, because 
such knowledge shows the folly of greed, and will 
lessen the dangerous inequality of the present dis- 
tribution of property ; or, what is the same, it will 



Physical Souls 129 

diminish a large number of crimes. We think that 
robbery committed by or with the brain, a species of 
robbery so greatly admired by our crude-physical- 
made laws, is no better than the kind of robbery 
committed by the force of some other body-organ, 
such as the arm or hand. 

No dynamo, no locomotive is as powerful as human 
thought, for human thought is a combination of 
brain-aura and sphere-ether. Fast revolving wires 
that engender electricity, and superheated steam that 
pulls railway trains, what are they when compared 
with primeval ether forces of nature ? But no human 
aggregation of thought is as powerful as soul-currents 
that blend into a focus. What are brain-aura com- 
binations when compared to a soul that loves ? What 
can the united brain-aura waves of the globe avail 
against a single soul-truth ? What can the crude- 
physical accomplish against the combined resistance 
of developed souls ? This combined resistance ought 
to centre in soul-development, and should be followed 
by the united efforts of developed souls. Then will 
the crude-physical crumble, and the world take a long 
breath. Man's path thereafter will be free and un- 
trammelled, permitting the human soul to develop and 
unfold. The fraud in all mundane affairs and mental 
operations will surprise no one, harm no one, and 
teach the incarnated how to avoid, disregard and 
overcome it. 



130 Soul-Return 



The term Physical comprises everything in terris et 
in ccelis that is not well developed. It is to the 
well-developed what a wax angel is to a real angel, or 
what a scolding female is to a sweet-tempered, warm- 
hearted woman. 



VI 

Human Character 

" He that has light within his own dear breast 
May sit i' the centre and enjoy bright day ; 
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts 
Himself is his own dungeon." 

Milton. — Comus, line 381. 

A MAN has two sons, John and Fred, and a 
daughter, Mary. John has smooth manners, 
inventive powers, great skill in managing 
worldly affairs, and a bright intellect. Busi- 
ness men associated with financial institutions he is 
connected with consider him trustworthy ; his friends 
admire his private life, and love him for his manliness, 
honesty and honor. He donates liberally to the poor, 
especially the poor connected with his church. 

This man, so highly esteemed and honored by his 
fellow-men and admired by his wife and children, is a 
dark, earth-bound soul. Should he grow very old, he 
would improve, which, after his transition, would aid 
him in his struggle to rise. But for the next three 
hundred years or more he cannot ascend to a higher 
sphere. Three hundred long and terrible years he ; 
the present boast of a commonwealth, must spend 
close to the surface of the earth, cursed by his like, 

131 



132 Soul-Return 



ostracized from the society of the better souls, avoided 
even by inferior souls that are still of a better class 
than he. Is it his fault ? No ; it is the fault of cir- 
cumstances, facts and conditions. The cause of his 
misfortune — a most terrible calamity, to a soul the 
most terrible of all calamities — may bear any con- 
venient name ; the proximate cause is the defective 
condition of his soul. It results from premature 
deaths in previous incarnations and the consequent 
lack of opportunities for developing the soul in the 
electric field of the human body. In many previous 
incarnations longevity, the basis of all soul-develop- 
ment, was denied him. Premature deaths, whether 
owing to disease, starvation, overwork, acts of impru- 
dence, executions, slaughter or war, are enemies to 
longevity ; they harm the soul. 

Every system of currents is a force, every force has 
laws of its own ; every such law is imperious, and 
must be obeyed. Unlike human precepts, i. e., the 
creatures of human brain-aura currents that flicker 
and flop until they join helter skelter into a resultant 
called thought, law, doctrine, idea or what not, nature's 
laws suffer no exceptions ; they are fixed by harmoni- 
ous, inductive, unyielding processes. Mortal law at 
times undertakes to oppose nature ; it is speedily com- 
pelled to yield. 

Earth-bound souls conceal their soul-condition. 
John conceals his soul-condition. Perhaps his wife 
might have knowledge of it. She is aware that 



Human Character 133 

savage ideas often agitate his mind ; that tales of 
murder and destruction fascinate him. He loves 
war; he thinks it is a grand and necessary thing. 
As a military commander he would expose his men 
recklessly. He covets power. He is exacting by 
nature ; severe in punishing errors ; ever anxious to 
deal out punishments. He is subservient to technical 
or external signs of right or wrong. He may forgive, 
but he never forgets. Although charitable in many 
ways he entertains an inwardly hostile feeling against 
the recipients of his gifts. As a member of a park 
commission he forbids placing seats in certain por- 
tions of a park because he does not wish people to 
take a rest. He is verbose, fond of issuing lengthy 
orders, rules, regulations, plans and modes of action. 

At his demise the clergy, the press, his friends and 
associates eulogize him, and the city flag flies at half- 
mast. 

A hundred years later the same clergy, press, 
friends and associates avoid him more intensely than 
they now avoid touching a venomous snake. 

Could his fellow-citizens have discovered his soul- 
condition during his earth-days ? Yes. A sensitive, 
or a well-developed mediumistic mortal could have re- 
ceived correct impressions regarding the actual condi- 
tion of John's soul. And the peculiar porcelain gloss 
and varnish of his eye indicate to any one trained in 
soul-facts, that he has the eye of an earth-bound soul. 
(Page 172.) 



134 Soul-Return 



As a rule, earth-bound souls are criminals. Owing 
to a good, harmonious system of circulation, however, 
or superior instruction, excellent home-influence, and 
above all, a well-balanced brain, an earth-bound soul 
such as John may avoid the gallows or the peniten- 
tiary. But the loftiest conception in a soul, viz., true 
love, was to him, as it is to all souls of his class, a 
mystery. In matters of the brain, heart and finances 
his earth-life was harmless ; but in matters of the 
soul it was a curse to those that were better souls 
than he and shared his roof. They were harmed by 
his immediate presence. Their soul-progression in 
the Beyond is delayed because their souls were con- 
taminated by the coarse, crude ether of an earth- 
bound soul. They would not have immersed their 
bodies in his bath-water, but in their ignorance their 
souls freely immersed in his vile and horrible aura. 

Fred instinctively holds his inharmonious brother at 
a distance. In his presence he is reserved, nervous, 
impatient, uncomfortable, anxious to leave, afraid to 
argue, exposed to frequent criticism concerning trivial 
matters, and conscious of their concealed malice. 
Criticising others is always more attractive than ap- 
plying criticism to one's self. The act of adverse and 
frequent comment of your fellow-men marks the crude- 
physical soul. 

Every discord in conversation, sentiment or trans- 
action affects Fred ; he hears it in silence. He being 



Human Character 135 

slow of speech many believe him cold. He does not 
mingle with crowds ; he forgives and forgets affronts 
easily, and is ever ready to favor or help others. He 
is modest but determined ; courageous in argument, 
yet averse to physical superiority ; he is hostile to 
war and bloodshed. He avoids thinking and speak- 
ing ill of his fellow-men ; he abstains from criticising 
friends and acquaintances. In his relations to the 
other sex he is frugal of adulation, lavish of courtesy, 
yet sincere. He marries not wealth, but pure, true, 
sacred love. His vocation is that of a teacher in a 
private school. He holds a membership in a club for 
the amelioration of the social and political condition 
of the masses. He is averse to the accumulation and 
hoarding of money for money's sake. His greatest 
fault is an over-fondness of sexual imagery, which 
robs him of valuable time spent in conjecturing un- 
attainable Oriental pleasures, whose realization would 
confront him with the police. The public considers 
him an always outspoken, well-bred man of many odd 
views, but in most things below his brother John. 
His superior soul-qualities are like unlisted securities : 
Not quoted in the market ; little known ; valuable only 
to the holder and the few that know him well. His 
demise escapes the notice of thousands, including the 
clergy and the press 

A hundred years later he inhabits the divine zones 
of this globe, — a perfected soul. Of his powers and 
splendor the press, the pulpit, the successors to his 



136 Soul-Return 



friends and acquaintances and his earth-bound brother 
have as little conception as mules have of immortality. 

Mary is a devoted church-goer. Her character 
differs from that of either brother. Her first thought 
in the morning, her last one at night, are hints toward 
obeying ecclesiastical rules. In her eyes John is a 
Christian, Fred a heathen. A woman's transgression, 
may it be ever so trifling, she considers a crime. She 
wishes everybody to be like herself in thought, habits 
and the observance of church-rites. She fancies that 
her style, her ways, her formalities please the Deity. 
She spends alms, not from the heaven-born delight of 
making others happy, but from a frigid sense of duty. 
In managing her household, strictness is the order of 
the day ; her servants are made to feel their humble 
position. She is no society-woman, but likes to pre- 
sent a faultless appearance at parties, concerts and 
other public affairs. She detests the theatre. She 
is connected with the management of a hospital, and 
proposes a rule, that none but Christian women shall 
be admitted as charity-patients. She avoids the so- 
ciety of men ; and rejects a marriage-offer on the 
ground, as she .says, that all men are bad. She 
strives for saintly honors, to which she considers sex- 
ual purity and celibacy a stepping-stone. 

At her demise the press, the clergy and the public 
assert that she was too good, too holy for this valley 
of tears. 



Human Character 137 

A hundred years later the press, the clergy and the 
public of her earth-days are aware that she has not 
progressed beyond the second sphere of the earth's 
aura, and is still without a "mansion in the sky"; 
and that several incarnations will be required to lift 
her into the abodes of well-developed souls. 

These three children are beings of widely different 
soul-conditions, which causes their characters to be 
widely different. Speaking of human character as 
being good or bad conveys no particular meaning. 
Mortals are not entitled to those epithets. Every 
mortal is as good or as bad as the condition, progress 
or advancement of his soul permits. John is incapa- 
ble of performing a heroic act such as foregoing 
revenge ; while Fred, if opportunity presented itself, 
would excel in acts of generosity and grandeur. The 
sister has only a mathematical conception of right 
and wrong. John's great defect is a defect of soul ; 
the sister's is one of mind. He and his sister are 
good-hearted but crude of soul. Fred's heart and 
mind are narrow, but these shortcomings are over- 
come by his well-developed soul. 

A person's character depends upon the condition 
of his soul ; the composition of his brain ; the struct- 
ure and electric status of his heart. Either of these 
constituents may be distinctly traced. The trinity of 
soul, brain and heart makes up the child, the woman, 
the man. 



138 Soul-Return 



The psychic side of human character is subject to 
the direct influence and control of disembodied souls. 
Souls being more powerful than unindividualized mat- 
ter and sphere-ether, their influence on, and control 
over, man exceed that of matter and free ether. 
Soul-influence and soul-control are continuous. In 
the present low stage of soul-knowledge they cannot 
be regulated, resisted or in any manner improved 
without a thorough analysis and study of soul-facts 
and soul-phenomena. 

A person, then, may be one of the following six 
egos : 

1. A good soul, i. e., a developed soul, with a 
poor heart and a poor brain. 

2. A good soul with a good heart and a poor 
brain. 

3. A good soul with a good heart and a good 
brain. 

4. A physical, i. e., undeveloped soul, with a poor 
heart and a poor brain. 

5. A physical soul with a good heart and a poor 
brain. 

6. A physical soul with a good heart and a good 
brain. 

The innumerable shades, degrees and combinations 
of soul, heart and brain constitute the character of 
existing human beings. In so far as the heart and 
the brain are parts of the human body, character is 
affected by prenatal conditions and the status of the 



Human Character 139 

parents. In other words, human character partakes 
of the body and the soul. 

Character belongs to a person's past. A person 
without a past or a history has no definitely known 
character ; he has habits only. The main constituent 
of character is the soul. No man's character is a 
safeguard to the world unless he belongs to the class 
of well-developed souls. And as only about ten per 
cent of mortals constitute that class, one need not 
wonder at the miscarriage of justice, honor, virtue 
and love. Education, instruction, parental example, 
contemporaneous associations affect and often sway 
the brain, through it the heart, and through the brain 
and heart the soul. Hence soul-development, the 
purpose of earth-life, is carried on partly in an indirect 
manner through the agency of brain and heart, whose 
interaction produces what may be called the physical 
or material side of human character. 

The so-called civilized peoples worship as part of 
human character certain denials of sex-passion. But 
sex-passion and its gratification contrary to the laws 
framed by the u majority," form no part of human 
character. Nine hundred ninety-nine masculines in a 
thousand disregard those laws without thereby en- 
dangering their character. 

The excessive gratification of sex-passion — the 
strongest and least controllable of human forces — is 
a triumph of the crude-physical over the best and 



140 Soul-Return 



holiest of currents. Chastity, abstinence and similar 
virtues are, each by itself, no direct or particular help 
to soul-development, although any of them may 
become such help by reason of the good influence 
they exert on civilization. Many a vile, earth-bound 
incarnated soul is painfully strict concerning sex- 
matters, in the severest terms condemning the slight- 
est transgression. This penchant toward condemna- 
tions occurs mostly in female earth-bound souls. It 
seems that by an intense rigidity in pitncto puncti 
they wish to make amends for the horrible condition 
of their soul. After their demise their hobby will be 
found to have been of small aid to their debased self. 
Mortals exceedingly sensitive in matters of sex gen- 
erally nurse far greater ills, soul-evils of the worst 
kind, such as malice, envy, hatred and revenge. To 
these, not to matters of the flesh, ought they to direct 
their best attention. In the earth-life of a human 
being sex-passion is only an incident ; and in a thor- 
ough analysis of human character as well as in the 
unending life of the soul it has no place. 

The fact that character has a complexion in the 
masculine portion of humanity different from that in 
the female portion is proof of its dependence on the 
body, certainly to a great extent. Many arts and 
activities ill become a woman ; feminine grace and 
traits ill suit a man. Nature has ordained it so. Melt- 
ing the feminine into the masculine, if successful, 



Human Character 141 

ends in the decay and ultimate death of the race. 
Man's brain shall battle with classes and species of 
currents totally unsuited to the female brain. Other 
classes and species of ether are exclusively appropri- 
ate to woman. If in this order of things she sees 
disgrace, let her remember that nature sees but one 
kind of disgrace or degradation, viz., soul-neglect ; 
that is, failure to perfect the soul. The Romans set 
a greater value upon the brain than upon the heart ; 
the Greeks, a greater value upon the heart than upon 
the brain. Both succumbed from a lack of soul-knowl- 
edge and the consequent ascendency of evil souls. 
From the same cause the same fate awaits now other 
nations. 

Human character owes its complexity to the fact 
that man is connected with terra ftrma, the aura of 
the earth, and the souls populating this aura. His 
heart and circulation are intimately connected with 
terra firma ; his brain is intimately connected with 
the earth's aura ; his soul, with the inhabitants of the 
earth's aura. It is a complex system, of which he is 
the exponent and final expression. His faults, peculi- 
arities and virtues correspond to the faults, peculiarities 
and virtues found in the aura and the souls of our 
planet. A well-developed, refined mortal may cause 
surprise by his queer actions and dishonest propen- 
sities. The queer actions result from queer currents 
of the earth's aura which he draws to himself; 



142 Soul-Return 



the propensities, from dishonest currents of his 
heart. Another person may excel through his won- 
derful intellect, yet be the execration of the world on 
account of his cruelty or dishonorable deeds. His in- 
tellect results from currents of the earth's aura which 
his brain attracts ; his cruelty, from the influence of 
disembodied crude-physical souls ; the dishonorable 
deeds from the dishonorable currents of his blood. 
Still another person may exhibit the highest sense of 
honor and stupidity of intellect, with an ambition to 
slay mankind. His sense of honor is derived from 
his blood ; his stupidity, from the trivial currents 
his brain draws from the earth's aura; the love of 
bloodshed, from the companionship of vile souls. 
As a rule, then, a man's reputation for being hon- 
orable, high-minded and moral ; a woman's, for 
being modest, cultured and virtuous, may not ex- 
clude the fact that either of them is a vile, wretched 
soul. 

The soul is the senior partner of brain and heart. 
The brain is the floor-walker of the concern called 
the ego. The heart is the office in the interior, 
whence pulsates the life of the whole. The soul is 
isolated from the details and material operations of 
the business ; yet, although apparently dormant, it is 
cognizant of what is going on ; it listens to the voices 
near by, and impresses its volition upon the two part- 
ners and the mechanism of the body. 

Soul-science teaches the heads of families that the 



Human Character 143 

characters of children differ of necessity, as differ the 
souls of the children, their brains and their hearts ; 
and that the difference in the soul-development of 
one's children manifests itself in the difference of 
their characters. 



VI 

Instruction and Currents 

" A boy is better unborn than untaught." — Gascoigne. 

IN a psychic sense Instruction means the increase 
in the number of a person's brain-traces, to- 
gether with an increase in the mutual relations 
of his brain-aura currents. When a child learns 
the letter of the alphabet it makes traces in his gray 
brain-matter. When it forms letters into words, the 
child causes brain-traces to assume certain relations 
to one another. A thinker takes words instead of 
letters, the words being also brain-traces, and ar- 
ranges them into sentences. The sentences are em- 
ployed in causing brain-aura currents to enter into 
mutual relations. In accumulating sentences, as, for 
example, in composing an essay, an author employs 
both brain-traces and brain-aura currents. He does 
not confine these currents to enter into new rela- 
tions with one another, but causes brain-aura currents 
already polarized into certain relations to enter into 
new relations without thereby destroying the old ones. 
The brain-aura is to the brain what the trees of a 
forest are to their native soil. Tree tops and brain^ 
aura currents are agitated constantly by a murmuring 

144 



Instruction and Currents 145 

world. The tops sway back and forth, nodding, sing- 
ing and sighing, and finally coming to rest. The cur- 
rents attract or repel each other, shaking up the 
whole entanglement of currents, firing their electric 
sparks at the universe and blank cartridges at its laws ; 
so that often the soul has a hard time in controlling 
them, i. e., human thought. 

Brain-traces occupy no space, while brain-aura cur- 
rents do occupy space. On the psychic side of life 
space is not a necessary constituent of anything. The 
instruction awaiting the reader at his arrival in the 
Beyond will be mostly in the nature of brain-aura cur- 
rents. Disembodied souls have no brain-traces, be- 
cause they have no brain. Their brain is buried or 
cremated ; and to gather new brain-traces they have 
no occasion, as their impressions are fixed in ways 
requiring no brain. Suppose that a disembodied soul 
is in the aura of a harmonious instrument and beholds 
a beautiful mastiff ; what occurs ? The answer is, a 
picture of the dog is produced in the spirit-eye, on the 
retina of the soul, and thence, without the interme- 
diate agency of a brain, conveyed to the proper brain- 
aura current. This enables the disembodied soul to 
retain a memory of the dog. Spirit-transactions and 
operations require less time and less discourse than 
mundane affairs. 

When a departed soul manifests without previous 
experience in any kind of soul-labor, it must make 
great efforts to manage its own self and keep in loco, 



146 Soul-Return 



It puts forth all its energy to identify itself ; to com- 
municate ; to help. It cares not for moral advice, 
questions or suggestions. The reader hardly realizes 
how ridiculous to departed souls are many of the 
questions which a mortal asks them, questions includ- 
ing details of past housekeeping or business matters; 
for the manifesting soul has no corresponding brain- 
traces. If it has any recollection of such things it 
runs in the line of incidents and causal connection 
with the items. The mortal questioner resembles a 
school-boy quizzing his professor as to the number of 
buttons on his — the professor's — coat. Should the 
learned gentleman make wrong answer, the youngster 
would scoff, and extol his knowledge over that of the 
master. What the communicating soul is desirous of 
saying to, and impressing upon, his loved one are 
words of cheer, advice and information ; what the 
loved one wishes to obtain from the soul is the re- 
membrance of table-spoons and names. And in the 
eyes of many a mortal: a failure of answering those 
tedious enquiries stamps the poor returning soul a 
fraud. 

A learned mortal is less learned after his demise. 
Some of his learning and acquisitions lie in the 
ground or are burnt up. His brain-aura is with him. 
What does it contain ? To describe the contents of 
a brain-aura is as difficult as describing the vegetation 
of a tropical forest of the extent of the surface of the 



Instruction and Currents 147 

moon. But an outline of an outline may be given. 
A brain-aura contains, among other things, the cur- 
rents of the brain-traces formed by transcendental 
currents ; that is, by currents of things living in the 
spheres. Mathematics of any kind and description do 
not exist there ; so that if the learned mortal in his 
earth life was a mathematician, his science has left 
him and he fares in the Beyond as if he had never 
studied the science of space and numbers. Nor do 
Geography, History and Theology live in the spheres. 
They are purely brain-matter. Great and small his- 
torians, after waking up in the Beyond, must devote 
their time to learning a new trade. Metaphysics and 
Philosophy have no space allotted to them in the great 
exhibition of human woes and beatitude of the Un- 
known. Nature will not recognize them. Medicine, 
Physical and Chemical Science as well as Languages 
are good in all the spheres, more especially in the 
higher and the highest ; for these sciences deal in 
actual currents, i. e., in facts. They are realities of 
far-reaching importance, for they benefit departed 
souls. Science implies the investigation and manipu- 
lation of ether currents. Its pursuit occupies the de- 
parted soul until it leaves this globe. The languages 
are convenient modes of communication. 

Natural History, Jurisprudence, Logic and sophistry 
of all kinds play no part in the Beyond. 

The mortal mathematician, historian, theologian, 
jurist and philosopher draw upon the ether spheres 



148 Soul-Return 

for their mental operations. But what they get in 
return is closely interwoven with their reading, con- 
clusions and speculations. These furnish the material 
with which they build and decorate their brains. 
The scientist and linguist have the advantage of get- 
ting currents that need not, and most of them do not, 
root in their brain, but are independent, and in the 
place of mere building material convey facts. To 
illustrate : A historian draws a lesson from the am- 
bitious schemes of Alexander the Great, Charlemagne 
and Napoleon I, viz., that conquerors ruin their con- 
quests and harm their own people. This is con- 
structed from the currents of his brain-aura aided by 
currents from the ether spheres. But the statement 
as such does not exist in the ether spheres. A 
chemist has analyzed a substance, and wishes to com- 
pare its properties with similar properties of another 
substance, among them its solubility in alcohol. His 
experiments and operations with the substance attract 
the same substance in the form of currents which join 
the similar currents in his brain-aura, and build up his 
results regarding the solubility and other properties. 
A physicist investigates X-rays, and wonders why a 
certain substance is impervious to them. If his brain 
is of the right quality he will draw the ether currents 
of that substance from the spheres, which after min- 
gling with the X-rays will satisfy his experiment. A 
linguist traces the transformations and modulations of 
a Sanskrit root which occur in other tongues. The 



Instruction and Currents 149 

meaning of the different equivalents of the original root 
he draws from the spheres in which they exist. A theo- 
logian wishes to prove that the Asiatic systems of 
religion are the only practical ones for modern na- 
tions. The thesis is drawn within his brain-system, 
without aid from the Beyond except the currents 
necessary for the inductive processes of his brain-aura; 
that is, the technical manipulation of his idea. 

The reader may make light of the instruction that 
will benefit him in his hereafter, as well as that which 
should be given him while he is yet in school on this 
side of the clouds. One thing, however, he must 
hear : Whoever is mediumistic must learn to develop, 
for his own safety. And he who is not, should at 
least receive instruction in the art and practice of 
genuine prayer. 

A person fitting himself to be an instrument for 
the use and in the employ of ethereal forces must 
develop his aura ; that is, prepare it for the calling. 
He must cleanse his aura daily, and keep it clean. 
The fabric of an aura is thousands of times lighter 
than the finest gauze. Whether his aura shall keep 
fresh and. new, unspotted and free from coarseness, 
depends greatly upon his daily food. He must abstain 
from a number of articles, which are mentioned in 
" Questions and Answers." The brain-aura should 
also be under restriction ; but the entire law-making 
power of the universe cannot control a brain-aura. 



150 Soul-Return 



Its currents sprout fresh combinations, i. e., thoughts 
or ideas, every minute of the day. 

To a departed soul a mortal's daily life appears a 
round of sorrows. From the time of his breakfast to 
the hour when the conglomerate of flesh and bones 
seeks his uneasy couch, his brain-aura is in dire agita- 
tion. What does it mean ? The answer is : Un- 
healthy conditions. Daily his brain becomes more 
dependent upon the ether spheres for thoughts ; daily 
the struggle with his superior resisting forces that 
issue from the dark grows more serious, cruel and 
exacting. Many a sweet-souled woman consumes her 
hours in weeping. Her instruction has ended in tears. 
She, a sensitive, developed soul, is wedded to a spotted 
undeveloped soul that should have courted and won a 
fair one of his own crude-physical class, instead of win- 
ning a soul of a greatly superior rank. Had she been 
instructed in the elements of soul-science, five minutes 
of daily soul-prayer continued a few years, long before 
she took the fatal step, would have saved those tears 
and constituted her a happy woman or left her a 
happy girl. To departed souls marriage is an act for 
the promotion of spiritual happiness and prosperity. 
Whatever aids these all-important items aids soul- 
development ; and whatever aids soul-development 
helps the disembodied portion of mundane souls. 
Marriages that fail to produce happiness and material 
prosperity are failures and should be annulled. 



Instruction and Currents 151 

Material prosperity is as important as any other 
kind of prosperity. Instead of being confined to a 
minority on terra firma it should be common to all. 
By material prosperity is not meant a degree of wealth 
measured by money-units, but in consideration of an 
agreed number of daily hours of work the enjoyment 
of a decent home, sufficient food and the necessities 
of life for the family. The undue accumulation of 
wealth among a limited number of mortals seems 
stupid, because it harms the development of their 
souls. Communion with the good class of departed 
souls will rectify this. Their labors inure to the 
benefit of the individual, not to that of any organ- 
ized society or clique. The irresistible proof that 
present conditions harm the masses and the favored 
few alike will bring about a more equal distribution 
of property, and prevent confiscation and bloody 
decrees. 

The instruction of the young in the precepts and 
duties of life requires no particular soul-effort ; the 
teachers of the branches ordinarily taught in schools 
are suitable persons to impart it. The operation or 
reaction of these teachings on the children's minds will 
be the work of the better class of departed souls per- 
formed through proper instruments. They can give 
better explanations than any hired man ; and what 
they teach and recommend has tremendous force with 
the young. 



152 Soul-Return 



The impression made by a noble departed soul 
upon a child of impressionable age is deep and lasting ; 
it is eternal. He will remember the impressions and 
manifestations even after his form is no more. Nor 
will the instruction of youth suffer by reason of the 
absence of fiction. It will be less picturesque ; less 
imaginative ; less fantastic ; but it will be the truth, 
and like all truth it will be simple, straight, tangible, 
progressive, natural. It will not be divided truth, but 
a natural unit, an instruction not for one day in a 
week, but for all days and every day alike. One truth 
alone shall be before the young, and from it they shall 
draw all thought, discussions and transactions. It is an 
eternal truth, viz., " Whatever wrong thou doest here 
below will clog thy journey on the other side!" 

When people speak of nature's healing a wound ; 
stopping the flow of blood from any part of the body ; 
loosening a passage ; solidifying a cartilage ; joining 
two fractured surfaces ; degrading a race of human 
beings ; establishing a particular species of vice in a 
people ; ingrafting peculiar doctrines in the brain-aura 
of a nation — they speak of facts that are accom- 
plished by special and particular currents. As stated 
before, the forces of nature maintain a strict division 
of labor. Every class of labor, duty or occupation, 
from that which attends the growth of a plant-cell to 
that which throws the affairs of a nation into a tangle, 
is operated by special currents. Plants and animals 
exhibit this system of special currents to perfection ; 



Instruction and Currents 153 

whereas man shows neglect and contempt for it when 
he undertakes to go outside of his own yard to casti- 
gate his neighbors for believing things which he does 
not believe; outside of his State to meddle with adja- 
cent peoples ; and beyond the seas to worry, rob and 
kill distant freeholders. In nature every species of 
currents shall mind, does mind, and ever will mind its 
own business, so as not to create new business for the 
species. In failing to accept this principle, man fol- 
lows the lead of stray, homeless, accidental, irregular, 
ephemeral currents that creep into so-called lofty 
brains, alias pest-boils, and thence are promulgated 
with drum and cannon. The end is the end of all 
things unnatural : Decay of the better class of cur- 
rents, preceded by a cessation of healing processes 
and the beginning of mortification, the forerunners of 
dissolution and decomposition. Stray currents are 
of the crude-physical, and disintegrate the better class 
of currents, usually without difficulty and with the 
greatest success. 

It is strange that birds sing and that dogs, instead 
of singing, bark. Yet dogs are affected by the music 
of string-instruments ; whereas the less susceptible 
canary listens to the divine strains of a symphony in 
sober silence, perhaps preferring its own cantatas. 
The only person that will explain this puzzle to his 
own satisfaction is the expert in the Zoology of the 
Mind. But after he passes away, he follows the poli- 



154 Soul-Return 



tician's habit and " takes it all back.' ' Examples of 
apparent puzzles like the foregoing are very numerous 
in nature, and should be brought to the attention of 
the young, in order to show them nature's fondness 
for individualism. 

Since the soul-progress of every individual depends 
upon the soul-progress of each, and since the progress 
of a soul is impeded by its avarice and greed, every 
mortal should understand that his happiness in the 
realms above will be incomplete so long as the happi- 
ness of his fellow beings is incomplete. His stay in 
the body is brief. When the burden of his form is 
no more, he takes up new quarters next door, a few 
feet away. For a long time his new home will be 
near his old home, and he should not think it worth 
while to make his future life, his new home, a heavy 
load to him by continuing his present inclination to 
amass and accumulate. 

It is a problem of the new century to show and 
explain to the world the phenomena of the unfold- 
ment of the soul. Nothing more important exists. 
One end of the cycle will describe and exhibit the 
black-souled fiends of bygone times, still existing in 
one among a hundred incarnated souls, prominent 
specime-ns of such black-souled fiends standing on 
marble pedestals in statuary halls and gilded palaces, 
their marble eyes portraying their marble heart that 



Instruction and Currents 155 

once beat for the destruction of their fellow-men and 
the misfortunes of those that paid for the statues. 
The other end of the panorama will show the new 
era of currents incarnated into steam, electricity and 
magnetic conquests, with a less number of the earth- 
bound, and a greater number of peaceful, merry, debt- 
less and harmless mortals, breathing because they like 
to breathe; working because they like to work; help- 
ing one another because they like to help. The new 
century will undertake this tremendous struggle 
against the dark crude-physical organizations. Then 
shall it be written in the year 2000 : " Accomplished 
is what no one believed could be accomplished : The 
union of mortals upon this globe into a family that 
know their souls and the aim of their souls. No 
more shall war and slaughter disgrace the human 
aura ; no longer shall injustice warp the course of 
mortal life. The reign of the truth of facts has 
come. Man opens his arms to all who need and 
seek his help, his sweat, his care." Then the days 
of mortals will flow in golden threads, not in blind 
and silly courtesy to the Unknown, but in the light of 
the sun, that gives them life-sustaining currents. 

Our planet is the home of about ten thousand mil- 
lion souls, of whom about fifteen hundred millions 
live in the incarnated state at the surface of the 
earth ; and about eight thousand five hundred mil- 
lions in the disembodied state, in the earth's spheres. 



156 Soul-Return 



These spheres, layers or zones of ether are ten in 
number, and they constitute the aura of the earth. 
They increase in rarity as the distance from the 
earth's surface increases. The three most remote 
spheres or zones, the eighth, ninth and tenth, contain 
the perfected or divine souls. The oldest of these 
reside in the last or tenth sphere. The drama of 
The Progression of the Soul is played in two acts ; 
the scene of the first act is laid at the surface ; that 
of the second in the spheres. The actors in the first 
act live in clay-houses ; those of the second act do not 
live in clay-houses. All incarnated and disembodied 
souls must unfold and develop. This activity requires 
hard labor. If a soul be nearly or quite developed 
when it leaves its form, or while residing in the 
seventh sphere, it is not reincarnated, and in due 
course of its progression enters the divine spheres. 
The least time required from its last mortal day to 
its first day in the lowest divine, i. e., the eighth 
sphere, is about thirty years. This holds good only 
of well-developed souls. The transition of Abraham 
Lincoln, a President of the United States of America, 
occurred in 1865. He entered the eighth sphere in 
about the year 1894. A large number of souls need 
several hundred years of sphere-life to fit them for 
that sphere ; and some cases necessitate a much longer 
time. Soul-progress in the spheres is slow. 

In addition to human, animal and vegetable souls, 
the earth's aura contains an infinite variety of ether 



Instruction and Currents 157 

currents. Now the task of the human soul, after its 
separation from the body, is to learn and practise 
the manipulation of these currents, and to learn and 
practise the manipulation of the currents of disem- 
bodied souls. The entire task of the human soul, 
then, while it sojourns upon this planet, consists in 
acquiring the knowledge and practice of the currents 
of the earth's aura and its souls. It is an enormous 
study, a stupendous, inconceivably difficult task. It 
includes the study, investigation and practical manip- 
ulation of millions of different currents, their combina- 
tions and products. Any portion of this gigantic 
labor executed by a soul while it lives in the form at 
the earth's surface is so much work performed toward 
the fulfilment of the herculean mission. 

Unfortunately for the human soul crude-physical 
forces resist it constantly during its terrestrial course. 
On terra firma these forces inflict their deadly poison 
as incarnated systematic organizations ; in the spheres 
the disembodied soul is harassed by the same class of 
forces, which are intensely active there. The diffi- 
culties these forces throw in the way of all progress- 
ing souls are not readily understood at present. 
Samples are given in another volume written through 
the hand of this instrument. Among the tortures 
resorted to by the earth-bound in the disembodied 
state is Obsession. Among the tortures inflicted on 
terra firma by the incarnated earth-bound are, as 
stated, disease, war, poverty, bloodshed, avarice, greed 



158 Soul-Return 



and other similar curses. The baneful influence of 
earth-bound souls would be weakened and ultimately 
destroyed, if every attempt of such a soul, or crude- 
physical souls in general, to land in a human aura for 
the purpose of impressing or influencing it could be 
guarded against, detected and defeated. This may 
be accomplished by him who is in touch with the 
better class of departed souls, because these, by 
timely warnings and other signals, protect him against 
crude-physical souls and their horrible work. There 
is no other remedy at the disposal of mankind against 
this terrible scourge. 

But the communication between the better class of 
departed souls and mortals is beset with obstacles, 
some of which are : 

1. Human brain-aura phantasms, crystallized into 
laws and prejudice opposing the return and commu- 
nications of good souls. 

2. The fact that human society opposes the ces- 
sation of the evil on terra firma by banishing the 
better and the very best classes of disembodied souls 
from palace, hut and home. 

3. Thousands of years of false guidance, under 
which the incarnated world has been led into the 
swamps and fever-regions of donkey-views and igno- 
rance regarding the facts and phenomena of the soul. 

The question is, How may a mortal repel and expel 
a crude -physical soul that happens to be in his aura; 



Instruction and Currents 159 

and how may he draw good forces instead of bad 
ones ? In other words, how may he be and remain 
in touch with the better class of departed souls ? 

The answer is : By prayer. Not the ordinary 
brain-and-lip prayer dependent on audible speech, 
which is electric and therefore unsuitable to the 
magnetic, the force of the soul ; but prayer of the 
soul. This kind of prayer draws soul-currents from 
the divine spheres ; constitutes a defence against the 
evil attempted and so often accomplished by crude- 
physical souls, and protects the praying mortal against 
their attacks. It consists in the concentration of the 
currents of one's soul-body, which concentration is a 
most difficult task, demanding years of practice, and 
differing from the so-called inward devotion which is 
always of the brain, never of the soul. Lessing's 
statement " A single grateful thought toward heaven 
is the most perfect prayer "is a mistake ; for genuine 
prayer, the most perfect inward devotion, is foreign to 
brain and thought. The concentration of the soul- 
body of the praying mortal must be strong enough to 
set vibrating the ether between the mortal and at 
least the ninth sphere. Nor is this sufficient ; it 
must set the ether vibrating with such force as to 
strongly affect the ether at least in the eighth, the 
nearest divine sphere, which is about twenty-five 
thousand miles distant from the surface of the earth. 
There are no other means of establishing an avenue 
on which the divine forces can penetrate to the 



160 Soul-Return 



praying individual. Ordinary prayer is powerless, as 
it seldom travels more than half a mile, and there- 
fore fails utterly to reach the lowest divine sphere. 
Besides, ordinary prayer comes, as has been stated, 
from the brain, not from the soul. 

The longer the practice of a mortal in the art of 
genuine praying, the farther his currents will extend 
into the spheres, and the more exalted a class of soul- 
currents will he draw. Years of practice will enable 
a developed incarnated soul to draw currents from the 
tenth sphere. 

In concentrating, the praying mortal should slacken 
his thoughts ; if possible, cause them to cease alto- 
gether, and throw his soul, his inwardness, as it were, 
out of the body. It is difficult to direct the reader 
precisely. He must feel as if his brain, his heart, his 
entire body had left him. The result is the separa- 
tion of the suppliant's aura-currents from the tissues 
of the body. Success will be his only informant as 
to whether his prayer is of the soul. But he need 
not waste his time endeavoring to practise genuine 
prayer unless he refine his currents by reforming his 
diet. 

Genuine prayer being a soul-act, it cannot be prac- 
tised or performed in a crowd; nor where two or 
more are associated together, unless they are strictly 
harmonious and have practised prayer among them- 
selves for a long time. It is an individual act, which 
to be effective needs seclusion. A person might 



Instruction and Currents 161 

engage in soul-prayer in the woods, but the advent of 
a bird or a cat in his aura would vitiate it. The rea- 
son of this is, that the low currents of the animal soul 
dissolve or neutralize the finer currents of the human 
soul. 

The best place for practising soul-prayer is a small 
secluded space in one's soul-home, mentioned on 
page 123, where one's magnetism prevails over that 
of any other mortal ; where one's invisible friends 
can labor undisturbed, unimpressed by currents from 
other mortals and invisible hosts. The necessity of 
separating one's soul-currents from the body-currents 
is evident ; for as long as both sets of currents are 
entangled with each other the soul-currents cannot 
ascend into the spheres. 

The most important instruction any one can impart 
to the young is to teach them the art and practice of 
genuine prayer. 

Man washes his face and calls himself clean. He 
mutters a prayer and thinks he is good enough. He 
avoids the unclean bath-water of a stranger, yet he 
immerses freely in the polluting ether of strangers 
and crowds. After a day's labor he arrives at home 
bearing a heavy load, a host of physical souls nestling 
in his aura ; he resembles a peddler carrying goods 
on his back. He does not drive the crude souls 
away because he does not know how to proceed ; he 
was taught to cleanse his body but he was not taught 
to cleanse his soul. His soul, his immortal self, is 



1 62 Soul-Return 



steeped in material currents ; he is not even aware of 
their presence. 

What is more natural than that if a person is 
mediumistic or even a fully developed medium, he 
should sometimes get at his home wrong communica- 
tions from the " other side " ? And that even his soul- 
home at times should be invaded and filled with wrong 
currents ! Only a non-praying instrument of early 
training and enormous power could prevent it, for in 
his case his controls would possess enough force to 
repulse the constant onslaught of hostile currents. 

The Nazarene, when he prayed, sent his soul- 
currents straight to the ancient souls in the tenth 
sphere. He could have changed the face of the 
globe had he explained, in writing, the manner and 
mode of his praying ; how humanity should pray ; 
how prayer currents are propagated ; whither they 
should pass ; and how far they must travel to benefit 
the praying mortal. 

Genuine prayer repels crude souls, and expels them 
from one's aura, because crude souls cannot maintain 
themselves in the focussed magnetic currents of a 
concentrated soul. It will not obliterate the ills of 
mankind at once upon its universal introduction; nor 
will it immediately convert this globe into a paradise ; 
but we know that it strengthens the soul ; that it 
elevates it, and tends to guard the praying mortal 
against disease, poverty and crime. But divine souls 



Instruction and Currents 163 

cannot control physical objects such as rain and sun- 
shine ; the world's gold-market ; a human stomach, or 
the errors of a confused mortal brain. Nor can they 
direct the electric ways of erring children until these 
are of an age to comprehend. To pray or urge 
others to pray for such things betrays ignorance of 
the human soul. 

All earth-sphere souls, save the lowest, engage in 
daily prayer which they direct to divine souls, asking 
them for strength, i. e., currents to invigorate them in 
their work. The souls of the lower divine mansions 
pray to their superiors in the higher and highest 
spheres for aid and assistance in their labors, i. e., for 
specific currents ; for visits from these exalted souls, 
and for other spiritual help. And the oldest divine 
souls pray for currents such as they need, addressing 
souls on planets Jupiter and Saturn, many of whom 
formerly resided upon this globe. 

To an ordinary observer a mortal engaged in genu- 
ine prayer is a very simple affair. He is seated, and 
his eyes are closed. His countenance is a blank ; his 
hands are uncrossed, in any convenient position ; his 
feet, also uncrossed, rest flat upon the floor. But a 
disembodied observing soul " senses " an agitated aura, 
bristling with excited aura-currents that shake up the 
ether all round ; a set of currents shoot forth toward 
the upper ether zones. Presently the aura-currents 
join in the movement. As shot is fired from a gun, 



164 Soul-Return 



the currents now fly forth. How far do they go ? 
We answer : As far as the mortal is able to send 
them. Can low, crude, incarnated souls pray in that 
manner? We never have seen them do it. Long 
continued efforts, several years of daily practice might 
enable them to succeed, and save them hundreds of 
years of tedious labor hereafter. 

We have watched our writer's genuine praying. 
In less than a minute of time his waves reach the 
highest sphere, the tenth, and acquaint one of his 
guides there with the fact, that he needs counter- 
currents from divine zones to dissolve the currents of 
some earth-bound fiend that holds him fast and pre- 
vents him from writing or performing other soul-labor. 
In a few minutes dissolving currents reach him ; the 
invisible monster flees in disgust, for no earth-bound 
soul can withstand genuine prayer currents and divine 
counter-currents. A divine soul, by making an 
analysis of the current sent by a praying mortal, soon 
learns the wishes of the mortal or a disembodied soul. 
Every genuine prayer current, whether issuing from 
an incarnated or a disembodied soul, tells its own tale. 
The curvature, length, amplitude and velocity of its 
ether waves speak a universal language, perfectly 
comprehensible in the highest realms. Human lan- 
guage becomes intelligible through a similar process. 
Thus the phrase " I am cold " is an aggregate of waves 
and currents, a number of signs standing for certain 
agreed sounds. They are conveyed to the ear ? and 



Instruction and Currents 165 

thence to the brain ; whereupon the soul, with the aid 
of ether waves, comprehends them. 

When the majority of voters in a commonwealth 
shall be conversant with the elements of soul-sci- 
ence and shall practise genuine prayer, then, not 
until then, will mankind begin to lose its greed, 
hatred and revenge, and its mania for shedding 
blood. 

Whoever belittles the vaunted power of invisible 
currents, or qxalts the reality of worldly objects such 
as an iron column, a block of granite or the puff of 
steam that moves a train of cars, should remember 
that we receive light rays from distant stars, one of 
which, Sirius, is fifty-one thousand million miles dis- 
tant from our globe, and that its light requires 
twenty-one years to reach the earth. That is, if to- 
day this star were to cease shining, the reader would 
continue seeing it for twenty-one years. If that iron 
column, block of granite or puff of steam were to 
traverse space with such rapidity, either of those sub- 
stantial materials, before going very far, would assume 
the state of something rarer than a gas, and in all 
likelihood, during the passage, diffuse, and never 
reach the earth. Whereas the ether currents from 
Sirius or even from remoter stars strike a mirror at 
the earth's surface as undisturbed, as placidly and 
serenely as the light rays of an ordinary lamp strike 
a mirror near the lamp. The voyage of fifty-one 



1 66 Soul-Return 



thousand million miles does not weaken those rays. 
The power and endurance of ether currents exceeds 
that of iron, granite or any other substance. Ether 
currents, not the external visible objects, are the 
world's realities. 

When the greater portion of a people fail to unfold 
the soul so that in six or more incarnations its soul- 
progress is nearly nil> its soul-currents weaken. By a 
series of slow and gradual but unfailing processes the 
soul-currents withdraw from that people and its terri- 
tory. Their withdrawal entails civil wars, foreign 
wars and a slow decay. This is followed by the ces- 
sation of the existence of the people as a nation. As 
an illustration of such decay may be mentioned the 
Italian portion of the Roman Empire. It devoted its 
currents mainly to the brain, whereby it excelled in 
matters of the brain ; and to the heart, whereby it 
excelled in worship and adulation ; it neglected and 
disregarded the currents of the soul, whereby its 
psychic force is now diminished, and its future ill- 
assured. Wealth, riches, foreign possessions and 
colonies do not bar the operation of natural law. 

The human soul needs a fresh, bright, clear electric 
aura, not an aura fed by the corpses of slain warriors 
or the damp air of meeting-houses. It needs an aura 
fed by open air currents and the sun. The soul 
develops more rapidly in a tiller of the soil than in a 
book-worm. A rural home furnishes better facilities 



Instruction and Currents 167 

for the soul than the refined and spicy air of a 
boudoir. Nor does nature care for the extreme 
development of the brain. The brain should un- 
fold sufficiently to guide the soul in its stormy 
passage on terra firma. Brain and heart are mere 
adjuncts to the soul. The aim, the purpose of life 
is the development, cleansing and unfoldment of the 
soul. 

New forces, i. e., new currents, have appeared on the 
reader's plane of life. Others are coming. He should 
meet them, and appropriate their most useful part, for 
which he needs instruction from his departed ancestors 
who studied them since leaving the reader's plane. They 
have a knowledge of what he needs; they possess 
enough experience to be able to teach him. Sobriety, 
kindness, endurance and peace preached by human 
tongue, and the same whispered into mortal ear by 
friendly souls from the other world, are not the same. 
The denizen of earth forgets the utterance of even the 
most fiery of human tongues ; but when he meets his 
departed loved ones, or his parents of a former incar- 
nation ; when they with their tremendous ether 
power appeal to him, he listens, he remembers, he 
obeys. This is not preaching the worship of ances- 
tors in the sense of maintaining their tombs, kneeling 
to their statues and adoring their images. Not the 
bones but the souls of one's ancestors in the divine 
zones should be worshipped, because being ancestral 



1 68 Soul-Return 



souls their currents run close to their praying de- 
scendant. 

To abandon ancient notions and early instilled con- 
ceptions requires courage which is a rare species of 
currents, engendered not by the soul or the heart, 
but by the mind. It is a mental uplifting. It needs 
no threats, no speech, no dagger. But its thought- 
principle must grow into conviction, and ultimately 
into action. The more expanded one's mental orbit, 
the deeper one's convictions and foundation for 
courage. Yet many a ripe scholar with occasional 
dreams of courage has failed to mature them into 
action. The masses of a people are conservative in 
all matters concerning the higher currents. They 
exchange willingly the locomotive for the air-ship, 
and are ever eager to cut off the heads of dissenters ; 
but they are hardly ready to recognize truths that 
transcend early instilled concepts. 

Courage is required to investigate new forces, new 
truths, new facts, new phenomena. The world's 
laughter follows failure; its admiration rewards suc- 
cess. True explorers care for neither; they pursue 
their line of investigation, and welcome new knowl- 
edge. 

There are those that consider it wrong to com- 
municate with the departed. May we ask, how 
wrong is it to investigate enough of the higher or 
additional forces of nature in order to help mortals to 



Instruction and Currents 169 

a knowledge of them, or at least to a knowledge of 
one or more classes of ether currents that mean so 
much to him ; that heal him ; guard him ; protect 
him ; and warn him of the presence of swamps and 
poisonous vines that grow close to his rosebuds, his 
children ; that teach him to prune the twigs that 
waste his sap ; and show him the pictures of his 
future home ? How wrong is it for a man to hear 
from forces of nature hitherto unexplored ; of the 
reason why he is born into this plane of life, and 
why he should pace its floor as long as there is a 
chance of breathing ? How wrong is it to dwell on 
the psychic phenomena of nature, which, whether we 
will or not, we have to master some time, some place 
hereafter ? How wrong is it to comprehend the 
higher waves that encircle the individual while he 
lives here below, since he cannot escape their in- 
fluence nor avoid their contact ? 

We hear it said, that these things are beset with 
difficulties. What is there in the universe that is 
not beset with difficulties ? We hear the remark, 
that these things bristle with fraud. What is there 
upon this material plane that in one place or another 
of its mundane existence is devoid of fraud ? Why 
not throw out these cautions ere a man assumes the 
responsibility of moulding new forms for the habitation 
of harmless souls ? Why not pause there and then, 
and emit such remarks ? Why not fear that the lives 
of one's children may be beset with difficulties and 



170 Soul-Return 



endangered by fraud ? Why not therefore conclude, 
that non-existence of successors to the difficulties and 
the fraud is preferable ? 

When you look at a horse, a cow, or a dog, behold 
an animal soul compelled to live in a form in order to 
progress. Their calm gaze ; their innocent eye ; their 
electric ways bespeak the plain, untrammelled course 
of earth-nature, exemplified by their very existence in 
a material body. Pity them rather than abuse them, 
for like yourself they came unasked into earthly 
sufferings and woe. 

When you see a child, behold its innocent eye, and 
say to yourself : " Poor soul, had you known the 
difficulties and the fraud accompanying your journey 
through life, you would not have consented to your 
incarnation. I will teach you to investigate nature : 
to learn at school and later on to overcome those 
obstacles. No one shall molest you in your pursuit ; 
no one shall dictate any harmful course." 

When your patience or good nature is sorely tried 
by coarse souls in human garb, pity them; they know 
little ; they have been ill-served, scantily clad, badly 
taught. Resolve to " sense" the obstacles that cause 
their present unfortunate condition. 

When departed souls manifest to you, tell you 
falsehoods, rail at you, and bid you kneel to nonsense, 
do not accuse the instrument or nature, nor dispute 
the truth. Pity such souls. Say to yourself : 
" These poor creatures return to us and repay us for 



Instruction and Currents 171 

the wrongs inflicted upon them. We failed to en- 
lighten them, to improve and develop them ; we are 
now punished for our neglect, for they return to us 
to lie, rob and steal; that is, they use their oppor- 
tunity to do unto us what formerly we did unto them 
when they dwelt among us in the form. Their short- 
comings hurt them more where they are now, than 
their present fraud hurts us." 

Soul-facts need time to be seen ; patience to be 
heard; perseverance to be known. If at first sight 
a person calls them bubbles, illusions and phantasms, 
and the materialized two-hundred fifty pound soul that 
with one finger lifts him six feet high, a mere brain- 
illusion, he must be strangely constituted, for the 
brain-illusion might press his throat with sufficient 
force to end him. If the brain-illusion, however, 
were to bring him the much-desired ducats, we 
believe he would hail it as a beautiful reality, and 
recognize it in due form, even to the extent of invit- 
ing it to return, with more of the gold. 

Those who believe that soul-writ consists of fan- 
tastic soap-bubbles should continue investigating, and 
see it produced in open daylight, with the answers 
responsive to his written questions which are known 
only to him. If after that he still claims that the 
answers were written by mortal hand, he is either a 
joker or a person insincere with himself. Insincerity, 
a disease prevailing to an alarming extent, is the 



172 Soul- Return 



product of ages of ignorance and false ideals concern- 
ing the soul. It prevents mortals from detecting the 
cause of their greatest affliction : The nearness or 
presence of crude-physical incarnated souls. The 
misery they cause would diminish, if man possessed 
the means of determining whether or not a mortal 
near him is an unreliable, crude and undeveloped 
soul ; not alone on account of the crude mortal, but 
much more on account of the danger from the crude 
mortal's unseen fiendish associates that are his like 
or worse. Ages of brain-aura doctrines, idolatry 
and false pretences have delayed psychic progress ; 
the ten per cent of the advanced souls, and a large 
portion of the less advanced, at this late day still 
lack the means of detecting the cause of their greatest 
affliction just mentioned. 

In a general way such a mortal may be detected by 
his eye, which lacks inward glow or warmth, and 
looks as if made of porcelain, china, or glazed earth- 
ware. Its centre or colored portion seems stamped 
into the white of the eye with a sharp-edged die. 
His lips are usually of the bloodless kind, of easy 
quiver and rapid motion during his utterance of 
speech, which always abounds. 

Women of crude, undeveloped soul have, in addi- 
tion, an inwardly directed stare in their eye ; a fond- 
ness of answering special questions in an indirect way, 
and of citing proverbs, mottoes, epigrams or literary 
phrases. During ordinary conversation they speak in 



Instruction and Currents 173 

a high pitch of voice, which they make part of their 
argument. 

Earth-bound incarnated souls, the demons of earth, 
generally have a piercing, wedge-shaped, vertical cen- 
tral face-line, noticeable in some of the worst types 
such as Napoleon I, and Philip II of Spain. But the 
surest means of identification is a clean impression, 
such as comes to most persons instructed in the 
elements of soul-science familiar with soul-facts and 
soul-prayer, or a silent tip with the finger given by a 
control to his mediumistic protege when the earth- 
bound monster is near. No one should immerse his 
soul in its corrupting ether. Unfortunately, such a 
vile soul may wear the livery of a beautiful woman or 
a handsome man. Many a poisonous flower is more 
lovely than a harmless one. Many a blue eye sung of 
in rhyme and prose is discovered after transition to 
have been the ornament of a vile, dark soul, shunned 
and despised by the very ones whose worship of her 
knew no bounds before death acquainted them with 
the truth. 

One of the grossest errors prevailing on terra firma 
is the belief that man must sink his individuality in 
the collected auras of a crowd or multitude. This 
would be unnatural. Nature cares more for the indi- 
vidual to whom she has * given so much, than for 
crowds, classes, or associations to whom she has given 
nothing. Unfortunately the individual suffers for the 



174 Soul-Return 



crimes committed by the crowd. He derives no 
comfort from giving up individual self, individual 
existence ; his sacrifice is followed by suffering. The 
greatest suffering he experiences in the Beyond, 
where he must bear it without the slightest aid from 
crowds, associations or classes. 

The psychic portion of a mortal's life on this mun- 
dane plane is one side of an equation. It contains all 
the facts of his soul-development. Knowing that soul- 
development excludes all kinds of crimes, wrongs and 
evil, and that it is for every mortal a fixed quantity 
expressed by his aura. The other side of the equation, 
which may be denoted by n, indicates the condition 
of the same soul at the time it is ripe for an exchange 
of globe ; that is, for transit to planet Jupiter or 
Saturn, on its last day in the highest divine sphere. 
In other words, n stands for the final result of the 
soul's labor on terra firma and in the earth's spheres; 
that is, the soul's final Power which it has on that 
day. The equation will not balance until all the soul- 
labors of terra firma and the spheres are added to the 
first member of the equation, which member, then, 
represents those labors. 

Let a denote the quantity of soul-development 
which the soul undergoes during its different incarna- 
tions ; and x the soul's labors in the spheres, which it 
must perform to finish its earth-task before it can 
leave this planet. Hence a -{- x = n represents the 



Instruction and Currents 175 

life-equation of a human being. Between now and 
the last day of his life in the tenth sphere every 
mortal must work out quantity x, regardless of the 
length of time this may require. The less of a he 
produces now, while living on terra firma, the more 
of x will he be compelled to perform hereafter ; that 
is, the harder will be the task of his future life, for 
sphere-life is slower than mundane life. His gain, 
therefore, lies in increasing a while yet living in the 
form. 

The question is often heard, Why is it that blood 
must not be shed ? Blood possesses important psychic 
elements, which consist of currents that run with the 
blood as integral parts of it. They assist in the pro- 
duction of the electric and feeble magnetic currents 
of the body, some of which maintain the soul in 
the form. If a person is killed, these currents 
leave at once ; but their departure does not destroy 
them ; they continue to exist. They join their like in 
the lower portion of the earth's aura, where they con- 
stitute a dangerous mixture or combination, dangerous 
because earth-bound and other degraded 'classes of 
souls seize it eagerly and derive undue strength from 
it. For by a psychic law, whatever is done for the 
purpose of setting certain human currents free reacts 
upon certain other human currents and sets them free. 
This law, like every ether law, is without exception. 
It entails grave consequences. When these currents 



176 Soul-Return 



saturate a low soul, they strengthen it in a physical 
sense, and enable it to compel mortals of a similar 
aura to commit bloody deeds. We are reminded of 
the old saying, that war brutalizes a people. 

Where blood is shed on a large scale, as when 
Charlemagne, an earth-bound soul, to force the Saxons 
into the Christian fold, invited forty-five hundred of 
their warriors to a love-feast, and after their arrival 
and removal of their arms to enjoy the banquet, 
slaughtered them, the psychic forces liberated are too 
ponderous for immediate consumption by low souls. 
They remain a collected mass for evil, and for further 
destruction of human life. Later, in the course of 
fifteen hundred years, about a hundred million human 
lives were sacrificed for a similar purpose. This pur- 
pose, i. e., the brain-aura currents of a certain trend, 
mingled with the tremendous quantity of psychic force 
set free, and the combination became a powerful 
engine for evil. By the operation of psychic laws, 
like begets like ; accumulated blood begets more 
bloodshed. Naturally, therefore, the last two centu- 
ries were replete with wars, revolutions and slaughter. 
They came upon the world through dark and spotted 
souls that preached and practised the lust of blood. 
In modern times it has come to pass that a trifling 
brain-aura excitement in a legislative crowd, where the 
crude-physical always prevails, suffices to produce what 
the combination of blood-ether and brain-aura currents 
always produces : Bloodshed and war. 



Instruction and Currents 177 

Where a person sheds the blood of another, the 
ether vapors of the blood so shed adhere to the aura 
of the slayer. They follow him, i. e,, his aura, his 
soul, into the Beyond ; the aura is freighted with the 
load. He must work it off in the Beyond through 
labors of kindness and charity, and must submit to 
works of necessity. Should he find employment in 
the aura of a mortal inclined to commit suicide or 
murder, and succeed in causing this mortal to abandon 
his intention or inclination, this would disengage his 
crimson load, for in such a case a crime is prevented 
by the efforts of him that committed a like crime. 

The foregoing law applies to all kinds of wrongs, 
crimes, felonies and participation in wrong doing ; all 
acts of selfishness, miserly habits and evil thoughts. 
" What wrong Thou has committed upon the earth 
Thou must undo in the Spheres ! " is a law of nature. 

About three-fourths of the population of terra firma 
are burdened with evil acts, disorderly traits and 
slaughter that existed in their previous incarnation. 
The burden would be easier to bear were they prop- 
erly instructed in, and conversant with, the facts 
and phenomena of the human soul. Even the mere 
fact of soul-return, if properly understood and wit- 
nessed, improves the ethical condition of a human 
being. The reader will now be able to fathom the 
crime of denying to millions of truth-seeking individ- 
uals the right and privilege of examining the phe- 
nomena of the psychic portion of nature ; also the 



178 Soul-Return 



fate of a ruler that causes the violent death of thou- 
sands of human beings to gratify the lust of earth- 
bound fiends that feed upon him and impress him. 
What compensation is a brief splendor in a palace, 
when compared to a thousand years' abode in the 
black sewers and swamps of the earth, which is the 
lot of the dark, heavy ether composing such a soul ! 

The new forces referred to are ether currents that 
have operated in the ether spheres from time imme- 
morial. Under a law similar to that of the diffusion 
of gases in nature's physical domain they are gradu- 
ally working earthward. Their advanced guard has 
landed on terra firma, seeking admission to the homes 
of mortals, in order to render them more spiritual, 
less worldly ; more mirthful, less sad ; more happy, 
less angry ; more forgiving, less revengeful ; more 
generous, less miserly. Every person ought to solve 
the problem, " Shall these currents be received and 
welcomed ? Shall I admit them to my heart ? Shall 
I receive his message, listen to his advice ? Shall I 
see her again whom I have loved ? " 

He who believes that beyond the journey on 
earth-life's sinuous stream there is nothing, should 
read these pages once more. If he be convinced that 
beyond the mouth of the stream there is the ocean of 
eternity, and that the saintly souls of his spirit-parents 
float above it and beckon him, let him speed his 
course and set his sail to meet them half-way. 



Instruction and Currents 179 

It is not known why the improvement or develop- 
ment of the soul should be the purpose of earth-life ; 
but it is certain, that the difference between the per- 
fected aura of a divine soul of this globe and the aura 
of an incarnated soul is the difference between the 
sun at noon radiating in azure skies and the glow- 
worm shining in a bog ; the difference between the 
powers of Hercules and the strampling of an infant ; 
the difference between the wisdom of a soul that has 
been disembodied for five thousand years and that of 
a sparrow just out of the egg ! When once such a 
soul shall place its materialized hand upon the reader 
long enough for him to feel it, its effect will last him 
the rest of his days on earth. Such is divinity ; such 
is the human soul, and the future of man ! 

Mind being made up of the brain and brain-aura, 
just as the soul is made up of the soul-body and its 
aura, it stands to reason that instruction in the currents 
which the brain may draw from above, and in the 
currents which the brain-aura digests and works over, 
is of as great importance as daily food. 



VII 



Imagination 



" Imagination, this lordly power, enemy of reason, which takes 
delight in controlling and commanding; in order that it may show 
what power it possesses over all things, has established in man a 
second nature." — Pascal. — Pensees, Art. Ill, 3. 

A person that has been called to the telephone is 
greatly annoyed when his ear receives stray, 
disturbing noises instead of an expected mes- 
sage. The same person when he muses over 
a subject is not at all annoyed at stray, disturbing im- 
pressions, or, as he loves to call them, thoughts, that 
ply their trade in his brain and prevent his reaching a 
definitive conclusion regarding the subject of his medi- 
tation. He thinks these impressions or thoughts are 
things of no reality ; whereas they are as real and ma- 
terial as a blizzard, a scolding wife or a drunken man. 
They owe their existence to causes quite similar to the 
origin of the hideous stray telephone noises, viz., the 
induction of currents ; in the case of the telephone, 
electric currents ; in the other case, brain-aura 
currents. 

Thoughts apparently buoyant, but lacking material 
substrata, are comprised under the head of imagi- 
nation. They are true and substantial ; but they 

180 



Imagination 181 



transcend the rule of mortals : Products of the human 
brain shall stand with both feet on solid ground. 
Goethe was right when he said, " It is as certain as it 
is strange that truth and error spring from the same 
source." 

Imagination has always been permitted to play an 
important part in the world. A woman illustrates 
this when she is in love. Her imagination and her 
love are two facts ; and so are she and the man. 
Should he fail to reciprocate her imagination, and 
bestow his soul-love upon some one else, her lot is 
sad ; which, as she will own, is also a fact. 

When Charlemagne and Napoleon I wasted the 
blood of thousands of warriors and peaceable men to 
carry out their dreams of a universal empire, each was 
under the baneful influence of a species of imagina- 
tion, which in like manner works with similar fatality 
on modern rulers that are eager to win the curse of 
posterity. 

All ether currents denote facts ; or, what is 
the same, every ether current is a fact ; but nearly 
every fact is composed of more than one current. 
In other words, nearly every fact is a composite 
fact. 

It is easier for a man to climb over a fence than 
over his brain or brain-aura, or even a single ether 
current, i. e., a single fact. He can get neither 
beyond nor above his imagination. Fence-climbing 
in her case being difficult per se> a woman gets 



1 82 Soul-Return 



bravely on the top of her brain by turning a somer^ 
sault, that is, putting her heart on top of it. Man 
never does that. She is right. The heart is more 
important than the brain. It hugs the centre of the 
soul, the centre of the ego. It is one's next of kin ; 
it gives due warning when the brain is mischief-bent. 
The brain acts as a guide, explaining remarkable 
sights, historic views, pictures, ruins and mummies. 
Of all the organs of the body the brain is the dullest, 
the laziest and the meanest, although it pretends to 
be ever active and fine. Its apparent work is no 
work at all ; it is simply imagination. 

The best part of a disembodied soul is its lack of 
brain. In lieu of brain it possesses a brain-aura. 
The currents of the brain-aura are exact and valuable. 
A mortal brain is an adjunct to the body, used for 
drawing currents from the spheres. But nature is 
aware of the difficulty caused by the tremendous 
difference between the drawer, the material stuff in 
the cranium, and the immensely superior, delicate and 
attenuate ether currents from the serene and refined 
ether strata of the earth's aura. It would be wonder- 
ful if coarse brains at the earth's surface could attract 
anything from above but coarse currents. 

Imagination is remarkably good for fancy cos- 
tumes with which poets invest mundane matters for 
the entertainment of mortals. But no man should 
judge his fellow-men by their dress, or the poet 
by his poetry. A mortal's imagination may create 



Imagination 183 



wonderful compositions, yet his heart, his aura, or his 
soul may be black. This truth conflicts with the 
everyday notion that brain rules the world. But 
brain governs the world much as dressmaker's fash- 
ions ; yet the dressmaker does not rule. 

The accidental haphazard operations and trans- 
actions of the mortal crowd on this globe result 
from imagination ; but the fate and harmony of the 
mortal, his soul-life and his future state are indepen- 
dent of it. They are the work of other classes of 
forces which in no wise court the brain. 

Brain is as necessary to man as are his clothes in 
winter; but not more so. Clothes are inferior to the 
man under them. 

The arts grow from imagination ; the sciences are 
based upon it; daily life sleeps and rises with it. 
The divine creations of Raphael ; the heavenly com- 
positions of Mozart ; the elysian character of Shake- 
speare, what are they but crystallized visions ? The 
physical sciences, including chemistry, cannot expand 
nor enter into computations without assumptions that 
are manufactured by imagination. The speculative 
systems of all names and descriptions, from a treatise 
on Theology to the plainest vade-mecum on Punctu- 
ation, owe their dialectic processes and connective 
tissues to imagination. 

All imagination consists of ether currents in a state 
of wilful, haphazard combination. The disembodied 



184 Soul-Return 



world, being brainless, possessing only a brain-aura, 
has less imagination than the mortal world. This 
circumstance makes the spirit-world more practical, 
more systematic, more successful. By a pecu- 
liar process of attraction the earthy properties of 
the brain are communicated to a large portion of 
the mortal brain-aura, which is greatly vitiated by this 
mesalliance. 

When we maintain that imagination is based upon 
currents we do not claim that, in all its forms, it 
expresses pure truth according to mortal standards; 
for such pure truth is a myth unless it can be meas- 
ured and weighed. We mean this : Currents being facts, 
and imagination being based upon them, imagination 
represents such facts as are truths of a certain kind. 
Thus, where a European in his imagination believes 
he is emperor of China, he is such in the sense 
that a number of peculiar currents have raised him 
to the imperial rank ; but it does not follow that 
he is such dignitary according to customary physical 
facts. 

Imagination is a helpmate to science. Its under- 
lying currents wait on physical currents of a scientific 
trend to suggest many a new grouping, experiment 
or unusual phenomenon. In nature there is no 
falsehood. Man sees the sun when it stands in the 
horizon larger than the same sun standing in the ze- 
nith. This is as much a fact as the fact that the size 
of the sun is each time the same. The true size of 



Imagination 185 



an object is one thing ; the angle at which the eye meas- 
ures the size is quite another. An axiom in mathe- 
matics says that the whole is larger than any of its 
parts. Now the truth of this axiom depends upon 
the meaning of the term "larger." The volume and 
contents of the trunk of a green tree may be larger 
than those of the whole tree after it is dead, i. e., 
sapless and dry. In Geometry the sum of the angles 
in a triangle is equal to two right angles. This 
is a proposition as unprovable as the fact that red 
is red. Yet the sum of the interior angles of a 
triangle curved and rolled together is less than two 
right angles. Most axioms are true only as long as 
imagination, i. e., certain species of currents, does not 
interfere. 

The disembodied soul being devoid of brain, it has 
no imagination, and therefore can impress mortals 
only by means of its brain-aura. The mortal may be 
so constituted that through his brain he can modify 
these impressions, and then be of use to his fellow- 
men as an artist or otherwise specially gifted person, 
as explained in Chapter II of this volume. 

In the ordinary mortal imagination produces many 
queer acts, futile movements and expensive dreams. 

The art and practice of regulating imagination or 
stray thoughts is unknown ; it will not be discovered 
while the human form remains constituted as it is at 
present. Stray thoughts are ever on hand, and, as 



1 86 Soul-Return 



the case may be, spoil or beautify whatever they are 
drawn to. 

The reader's brain-aura, after his brain is laid away, 
will keep a single thought prominent, and allow none 
other to interfere or take possession of him, viz. : 
a How best can I develop into a divine soul ? " 

A mortal can scarcely picture to himself the 
advantage accruing to a departed soul from the lack 
of brain and imagination. Their existence in the Be- 
yond would add to the horrors there prevailing, which 
are already past endurance. A ton of imagination 
in a mortal brain would not suffice to conceive the 
iniquities practised there by the earth-bound and the 
undeveloped. The children of earth get a feeble 
idea of it through the public press in the form of 
premeditated, that is, inspired crime. Also through 
the fraud practised in seances so frequently com- 
plained of. But the fraud thereby rendered intelligi- 
ble to mortals is but a small portion of the fraud, 
nefariousness and wickedness occurring at every 
moment on the " Other Side " of life. 

The crude-physical seeks to rule all classes of souls 
through currents of the baser sort, which give rise to 
imaginary facts of the baser sort rooting in its coarse 
brain. Its ways of ruling comprise the imposition of 
penal laws, rules and regulations ; the enforcement of 
obnoxious traditions ; the bewilderment of developing 
soul-scientists ; the disruption of ties of friendship ; 
the litigious tendencies of quarrelsome mortals ; the 



Imagination 187 



fanning of the instincts of revenge ; and the support 
of the traitors to the cause of personal independence. 
The fraud-hunters in psychic phenomena and mani- 
festations are their special favorites, for they aid the 
disembodied fraud-producers in delaying the dawn of 
a better mortal life. What we have said here applies 
to the milder forms of the rule of the crude-physical. 

By processes among which the process of Induction 
is paramount, stray currents enter the brain-aura. At 
times they are attracted to and combine with brain- 
traces. At all times they are real, although by mor- 
tals classified under the head of Imagination. 



VIII 

The Divine Spheres 

" The world knows nothing of its noblest souls." — Anonymous. 

WHEN in its progression through the 
earth-spheres a soul has developed 
sufficiently, it enters the divine spheres. 
What is meant by " divine" is hard to 
say. Perhaps it means " completed," in the sense 
that the soul has completed all the labors of terra 
firma and the earth-spheres incumbent upon it to 
perform. With ancient souls in the highest mansion, 
divinity means the soul's final separation from earth- 
matters and earth-conditions, which implies an immen- 
sity inexplicable in prose and rhyme. 

The ether of the divine zones is rarer than that of 
the seventh sphere ; that is, rare enough to float or 
support a highly attenuated soul. They are but 
sparingly inhabited, because, unfortunately, only a 
limited number of souls are fit to enter them. The 
greater portion of departed souls, on leaving their 
flesh and-bone body, are insufficiently prepared, be- 
cause on terra firma their life was too brainy, too 
electric ; and they were too busy ornamenting home, 
body and pocket-book. Incarnation upon this globe 

188 



The Divine Spheres 189 

does not benefit the soul as much as nature believed 
and intended, owing to the immense influence of the 
crude-physical elements and their mundane organiza- 
tions. The divine spheres contain thousands of 
vacant homes, while the populations of the lower 
spheres is too great. 

When one of the authors of this volume was about 
to enter the eighth sphere his heart throbbed as it 
throbbed on his wedding day many years before. 
The fact that he got a ring and gave a ring on that 
day ; that love filled his heart, and that when he came 
to die love was his last breath, came to his spirit- 
mind. His heart now expanded with love, not the 
love of earth, but the love of a prince of the ether 
realms. As soon as he entered he enjoyed full 
vision, and saw the ethereal beauty of his new abode. 
Kindred souls welcomed him, and escorted him to a 
temple that was to be his home. During his last 
earth-life he earned hardly enough to keep from 
starving ; now he was one of the exalted of earth, 
whose labors are important and far-reaching. 

The reader may ask, Where was his loved one ? 
His son ? His daughter ? The answer is : They 
were where nature had placed them, where they 
belonged, each in the mansion he was entitled to. 

In a great and wide sense every mortal should feel 
that the world is hardly large enough to contain hirn. 
He is now living at the surface of the earth carrying 
earth-conditions, counting money, sandbagging his 



190 Soul-Return 



competitor, and cutting hated throats ; all of which 
is foreign to the mind, the heart and the body of the 
soul that enters the divine mansions. Otherwise the 
soul would not be ripe for them, and could not enter 
them. 

A divine soul works for all those that may need its 
work ; it aids millions of victims of faulty earth- 
teachings; it loves for the benefit of any and all 
souls in the spheres and at the surface of the earth. 
Earth-life, sphere-life, divine life, each is a campaign, 
a combat with lower forces. The end is not realized, 
the final result not announced during man's residence 
in the terrestrial system. 

The activity of souls of the eighth sphere extends 
over all the branches of soul-science known to the 
souls in the earth-spheres ; over the currents of the 
earth's aura, and the soul-currents in the fold of 
earth-sphere knowledge. A few of the labors of this 
class of souls may here be stated. 

In the case of a developing instrument, where after 
months of patient labor no results are forthcoming, 
the controls call for an eighth-sphere soul to examine 
certain features of the instrument, and render its 
advice. A ship is sinking in mid-ocean ; a medium 
is aboard. His controls ask an eighth-sphere soul, 
" Can you save our friend ? " The divine being with- 
draws physical force from a number of Indian souls, 
who, to save a medium, willingly allow this depletion 



The Divine Spheres 191 

of their force. By the aid of this force the divine 
soul succeeds in impressing the medium's brain, 
directing him to a wooden plank on which he saves 
himself. The reader may think a person in such 
distress would find the plank without impressions 
from the " Other Side " ; but ill-fated mortals welcome 
any quick impression that may save their life. We 
know of impressions communicated to mediumistic 
engineers — none others ought to be employed — 
operating the locomotives of certain passenger trains, 
who by instantaneous obedience to the impressed 
command " Stop at once ! " prevented collisions and 
saved human lives. Recently to our knowledge such 
an engineer brought his train to a full stop within 
thirty feet of an enormous land-slide covering the 
track in front, on the other side of a curve. The in- 
stantaneous effort of another such gifted railway 
employe stopped his train a few feet from a collapsed 
bridge. An unmediumistic or unimpressionable 
engineer would have led the train to inevitable 
destruction. 

Eighth-sphere souls seek to prevent : 

1. Suicide, This terrible calamity would occur 
more frequently but for the services of departed souls 
specially installed by their eighth-sphere superiors for 
its prevention. 

2. War and its Bloody Deeds. Through the 
agency of one or more eighth-sphere souls some older 



192 Soul-Return 



inhabitant of the same sphere seeks to influence the 
tigers of earth before they seize their prey. 

3. Shipwrecks. The sensing powers of invisible 
lookouts on a ship are keener than nicotine mortal 
eyes. With psychic improvement on board a ship, 
timely impressions on the auras of officers and crew 
would prevent many an accident at sea. 

4. Conflagrations. Eighth-sphere souls readily 
detect fires, red-hot pipes, damaged flues, defective 
boilers, and may bring them to the attention of 
impressionable watchmen. 

5. Undue Activity of Low and Earth-bound Souls. 
This is noticed generally by souls of the eighth sphere 
when that class of malefactors clogs human auras. 

Eighth-sphere souls seek to promote : 

1. Inventions. A mediumistic inventor occasion- 
ally is controlled by a soul of this class. Non- 
mediumistic inventors are escorted by some earth- 
sphere soul that endeavors to impress them under 
the instruction and guidance of eighth-sphere souls. 

2. Mediums hip. It is developed through souls of 
this class by means of instruction given by them to 
earth-sphere controls. 

3. The Study of Soul-Science. The teachers of 
soul phenomena whose auras are mediumistic will be 
guided by the instruction of souls of the highest por- 
tion of the eighth sphere. 

4. Impressionability. An earth-sphere soul per- 
forming earth-work and wishing to promote the 



The Divine Spheres 193 

impressionability of his protege consults first an 
eighth-sphere soul. 

5. Aura-Development. Advanced eighth-sphere 
souls aid the aura-development of mediumistic mortals. 

Few things please a divine soul better than to be 
" impinged upon" by a gentle current from man's 
material plane of life. Such a welcome event hap- 
pens whenever the genuine prayer of a human being 
reaches the divine mansions. Prayer-currents reach 
them only in rarely occurring, isolated, delicate threads 
finer than a gossamer. The soul or divine aura 
impinged upon immediately responds. Sometimes 
eighth-sphere souls send the prayer-current of a mor- 
tal to some tenth-sphere divine soul. To do this 
they pray and give the current a certain impetus, 
conveying the wish " Come down ! " The tenth- 
sphere soul condenses the current, retains it and 
answers it through the same agency. Whether the 
mortal recognizes the answer depends upon his medi- 
umship or impressionability. To sensate the answer 
the mortal need not be a medium, nor mediumistic; 
but he must be impressionable or sensitive. All mor- 
tals capable of praying in the genuine way may acquire 
sufficient sensitiveness to cognize divine answers to 
their prayers. 

The souls inhabiting the ninth sphere differ from 
the former class of souls as the sun differs from the 



194 Soul-Return 



moon. Their aura is luminous throughout, of a 
greater extent, purer tint and finer tissue. It re- 
sponds to the faintest current from the zone below. 
Human beings have no conception of the grandeur of 
such an aura. 

All sources of inspiration, impression and other 
medium istic activity, and nearly all guides of psychic 
instruments, belong to this class of souls. Its mem- 
bers patronize inventors, and stimulate the energies 
of many a mediumistic discoverer. They are instru- 
mental in producing impressions of peace in the 
auras of those authorized to terminate an existing 
feud or war. They make it their duty to resist 
hostilities They seldom succeed, because on this 
planet the joint forces of the earth-bound and the 
crude-physical are too powerful. Ninth-sphere souls 
are the natural guardians and protectors of human 
auras that produce works of genius. As soon as 
a young aura shows signs of maturing into this 
phase of mediumship, a ninth-sphere soul is made 
acquainted with the fact. 

The tenth or highest sphere is of larger extent and 
rarer ether than the preceding. Its most advanced 
inmates live near stellar space ; their auras are of the 
quality prevailing on higher planets. Their homes 
are white temples, surrounded by gardens and parks, 
whose splendor is in harmony with the tenants, the 
princes of this earth. The beauty of this sphere is 



The Divine Spheres 195 

extraordinary. No mortal can conceive or describe 
the spiritual bluish light ; the rosy tint of the ether 
mountains ; the deep blue color of the waters ; the 
whiteness of the temples ; the gorgeousness of the 
flora, and the majestic presence of ancient souls. 

The main activity of this class of souls consists in 
receiving, preserving and operating the principles 
existing in the spheres and at the surface, such as 
those of Justice, Love and Charity ; the Arts, the 
Sciences, and other human activities. This " receiv- 
ing" and " preserving" is accomplished in ways 
whose demonstration exceeds the purpose of this 
volume. A faint resemblance may be found in the 
preservation of human speech in the record of a 
graphophone. 

Tenth-sphere souls associate together and form 
bands. When they manifest to mortals in a seance- 
room, which they do rarely, they usually introduce 
themselves as members of a certain band whose 
name they indicate. A spirit-band possesses great 
strength. Although each soul acts individually as a 
unit, yet the action of each is that of a fraction of its 
respective band. But the principle of the entire 
band is shared and operated by each member. 

The labors of this class of souls benefit the lower 
zones, and through them terra firma. The excep- 
tions, that is, the cases where tenth-sphere souls 
touch the mundane plane of life direct, are those 
of genuine prayer and occasional manifestations. 



196 Soul-Return 



The difference between the labor of mortals on 
terra firma and that of earth-sphere souls is slight ; 
while that between either class of souls and the 
divine beings in the three highest spheres is like the 
difference between the science of picking pockets and 
the science of Astronomy. 



IX 

Other Worlds 

" It is a truly sublime spectacle, when in the stillness of night 
in an unclouded sky, the stars, like the world's choir, rise and set, 
and as it were, divide existence into two portions : — the one, 
belonging to the earthly, is silent in the perfect stillness of night; 
whilst the other alone comes forth in sublimity, pomp and majesty." 
— W. von Humboldt. — The Starry Heavens, Letter I, 56. 

WHAT has soul-science to do with the 
starry firmament ? If the reader sup- 
poses his earth-life constitutes all there 
is, the myriads of luminous balls sus- 
pended in the heavens will answer him : " No, these 
balls are precious ; they serve a purpose." Every- 
thing, from the bacillus to the elephant, from a speck 
of dust to the brightest star, has a purpose. The 
reader's soul, his wife, his misery, his fault, each has 
a purpose. When he inhabits the earth's spheres, 
mourning the lost opportunities of his last earth-life, 
the truth of what is here said will strike him with 
singular force. And still later, when ready to leave 
this globe, he will remember this chapter, and wonder 
that of the myriads of other worlds only one is destined 
to receive him, until " further orders," which he will 
receive from nature. He may ask, " Why just that 
one?" A lover, referring to the ideal of his soul, 

*97 



198 Soul-Return 



might ask, " Why just that one ? " A mother whose 
only son was slain in battle asks, " Why just he?" 
Such questions are put in vain. Nature is ever 
silent, except that she proclaims the wonder of her 
works through the song of birds and prima donnas, 
the tears of women and sentenced, criminals ; the 
moans of the bleeding victims of military grandeur 
and dissolving empires. " Why just he ?" has been 
asked millions of times ; not once was it answered. 
The only response known is : " Because of anything 
and everything in this world there is only one." 
One is nature's only number ; all others are of human 
imagination. 

The tumultuous bustle on the mundane stage of 
life is a world of its own ; the silent incense of soli- 
tude, the creator of works of the imagination, is 
another world. Earth-life may truly be said to com- 
prise at least two worlds. The next world to come 
is the earth's aura, and after it one of the planets 
mentioned before. How the soul will get across 
universal space when it must pass from our globe to 
planet Jupiter or Saturn is explained in another 
volume of Fred Max. It has been stated, that from 
either of these planets the pilgrim of earth passes 
over to star Alcyone. 

In his dreams, his writings, his distractions, his 
imaginary transactions man lives, as it were, in 
another world. Our nearest planet just now is the 
moon, uninhabited. Some day nature will fit it up 



Other Worlds i 



99 



for the abode of souls. A lunar home will be a home 
of the far future. A lunar soul will seek soul- 
development in a form at the surface of the moon, 
and thereafter the disembodied lunar soul will live in 
the aura of the moon. None of the souls now in- 
habiting the earth will pass to the moon. The future 
lunar denizen will come from some other planet, 
after the manner of man, who, as we are informed, 
came to this globe originally from planet Neptune. 

Of the other planets we know little, except what 
we learn through occasional limited messages from 
Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. We are not acquainted 
with the conditions on Mars or Mercury. No soul- 
life exists in the aura of the sun. 

The fitness of a planet as an abode for the life of 
disembodied souls is decided by the planet's aura. 
Messages from Jupiter and Saturn received by the 
oldest souls in the tenth sphere of our globe state 
that the auras of these planets as compared with the 
aura of the earth are exceedingly fine, of greater 
spiritual power, and greater capacity for psychic life. 

A number of heavenly bodies belonging to a com- 
mon, concentric system, fed by a central sun, con- 
stitute a solar system. The number of such systems 
in the universe is unknown. It would be folly to 
suppose that they sustain no relation to one another. 
All of them together, could they be viewed from a 
distant mountain, might be seen to form a grand 
and beautiful entity. 



2oo Soul-Return 



A test of a developed materialized soul is its 
capacity of producing and bringing with it its own 
light. Less developed souls shine and make them- 
selves known by lamp-light in the room. Similarly 
the degree of perfection of all heavenly bodies is 
one of luminosity ; and the imperfect ones, the 
planets, shine by reflected or borrowed light. The 
eye of a well-developed incarnated soul issues a mag- 
netic fluid which is instantly recognized by another 
well-developed soul. 

Human bodies and human edifices perish ; nations 
go under ; and heavenly bodies dissolve so that their 
fragments drift aimlessly through space. But the 
soul remains, and continues to exist. Whether in 
the lower or higher spheres, on terra firma or the 
briny deep, the soul lives somewhere, struggling on 
in order to reach ultimate perfection. The perfected 
souls of the earth's aura entertain little doubt that 
the starry firmament with its visible and invisible 
myriads of millions of suns, stars, planets, milky 
ways, nebulae and comets is all one celestial body, 
a tremendous, all-powerful and almighty entity that 
eludes our comprehension and consciousness because 
too infinite to enter human cognition even in one 
hundred thousand years hence. Nor do the per- 
fected souls of this globe doubt that it is the mission 
of all souls in terris et in ccelis to learn the laws 
governing the currents of the universe ; and, what 
is more, to understand them ; and, what is still 



Other Worlds 201 

more, to be able to practise them. The child 
that bakes mud-pies ; the assistant in a laboratory ; 
the scholar that measures the distance of the stars ; 
the disembodied soul that returns from the ether 
zones to rap at a bed-post, to write on a slate or to 
materialize ; the divine soul that writes these lines 
through the mechanism of a human hand, are, one 
and all, souls in different stages of development, 
studying, practising, manipulating the laws of the 
most powerful entity : Nature. 

Mortals are taught to consider nature a vulgar 
mass of earthy rules and vulgar acts, too mean or 
small for man, a mere handmaid to something else. 
Such teaching is wrong Those that see but the 
coarse in nature must see by analogy but the coarse 
in man. They have learned erroneous lessons which 
were imparted to them to their damage. Nature 
comprises the coarse and material as well as the 
lofty and sublime. She operates the human machine 
as well as the human edifice of science, art and 
ethics. The chemistry of the stars is the same as 
that of the kidneys ; the motions of the moon re- 
semble those of the moth encircling a source of 
light ; the little wax candle burns under the same 
law as the corona of the sun ; the cries of an infant 
are related to the prayer of the multitudes ; the 
strains of a poet descend to him from the spheres 
even as fertilizing rain descends from the clouds 
and the inspirations of genius and messages from 



202 Soul-Return 



other planets descend to the souls of this globe. 
They are processes of nature so lofty and so far 
removed from jealousy, wrath and revenge, that 
nature cares little whether she figures in the human 
brain as a Lord or a Lady, as an archangel or a com- 
posite Power ; as a helpful or hostile force ; for she 
is always sure of her leadership, the continuance of 
time in her favor, and the impossibility of any one's 
escape from her realms and jurisdiction. Nature is 
a firm, relentless but modest teacher, undesirous 
of adulation and worship, but insisting on two 
things, viz., obedience to her laws and the study of 
them. 

The material world imposes its duties on man ; the 
crude-physical burdens him with its dicta ; past cen- 
turies impress him with the inertia of time ; climatic 
and physical catastrophes operate changes on him ; 
the avalanche of habits, enjoyments and vice burks 
his talent ; the virtues and loveliness of woman lift 
his eyes to the higher spheres. If he perishes 
through the ascendancy of crude, bloodthirsty, de- 
structive forces, he will make up for his shortened 
incarnation by a longer detention in the spheres, 
where he will gradually outgrow the Physical and 
thereafter admit the error of his former mundane 
views. Ultimately the greatest punishment to him 
is this extended delay in the seven earth-spheres, 
for it is a suffering full of psychic discomfort, pain 
and remorse. Millions of departed souls are now its 



Other Worlds 203 

victims. To undertake to explain their terrible 
condition would be an idle task. 



In the streets of a city we often hear the exclama- 
tion, " Help the Blind ! " This book is a response 
to that appeal for more light, and the delivery from 
the darkening influence of the crude-physical. 

If the fabrics of existing human institutions are to 
endure, nature's facts, her laws, her commands and 
precepts must prevail. If these remain shrouded in 
mystery ; if they are derided and belittled, decried 
as vulgar, occult and treacherous, then the currents 
of the crude-physical have won. But if they are 
held in proper esteem ; if they are studied, analyzed 
and described ; investigated, discussed and shielded 
from the scorn and abuse of the vulgar, then human- 
ity will gain. And its greatest gain at the end of a 
mortal's earth-life and development will be the econ- 
omy of time, of hundreds, thousands of dolorous 
years. A single fact, and its continuance as a fact, 
of revenge, war and bloodshed will delay that price- 
less condition of a people or race, in which it can 
exclaim : " We have won. Time, once our enemy, is 
now ours ! " 

A single fact, like a single individual, is more im- 
portant than a thousand mob-made laws or a million 
imaginary dicta of the brain. Every one of the 
" Other Worlds " is a separate and distinct fact, pro- 
duced for a purpose, and existing for a purpose. 



X 

Harmonies 

" The hidden soul of harmony." 

Milton. — L'Allegro, line 144. 

A FEW notes of music, played together, may 
be harmonious ; or they may be totally dis- 
harmonious, that is, they may grate upon 
the ear. A painting may suffer from a lack 
of harmony in its grouping, shades of color or some 
other detail. Many a statue displeases because 
something about it is inharmonious to the whole. A 
family living under one roof may be out of harmony 
with itself ; perhaps its members take undue liberties 
in their actions, opinions or privileges. Individuals 
may exhibit inharmonious traits of character ; that 
is, some constituent psychic part of theirs may be 
coarser than others. 

Anything lacks harmony whose predominant attri- 
butes are either out of proportion or in dissonance 
with the rest. It has been stated, that a medium 
cannot give a correct message, unless his control is 
harmonious to the communicating soul. Nothing of 
the kind is noticeable in the ordinary affairs of mun- 
dane life. For example, when A tells B to inform C 
that something will happen, harmony between A and 
B, or B and C, or A and C is of no moment. But 

204 



Harmonies 205 



the case is different, where A is a departed soul de- 
sirous of giving a message ; B a medium's control, 
and C a sitter wishing to hear from A. Unless A's 
ether vibrates in unison with the ether of the control, 
the message lacks truthfulness because of this want 
of harmony. The phrase "vibrate in unison " means, 
that every wave of the one must coincide with every 
wave of the other. Where this is not the case the 
currents are inharmonious, resulting not only in the 
well-known lack of harmony but also in the weaken- 
ing or deadening of the effect of the currents. To 
illustrate : Photographs not infrequently show minute 
black dots. They are caused by the absence of 
white light ; or, what is the same, by a number of in- 
harmonious light rays whose light-effect is nil. 
Their waves failed to coincide with one another. 

When the ether waves of two souls do not blend 
into one another, there is disharmony. The reader 
may find overwhelming proof of this in the homes of 
the ill-mated, where a developed soul is chained to 
an earth-bound soul. For further evidence he is re- 
ferred to the children of such ill-fated couples whose 
misfortunes are the curse of their offspring. 

When two disembodied souls are inharmonious, 
they may be near one another without being aware 
of each other's presence. That is, unless currents 
pass from one to the other, the two souls do not 
know they are close to each other. Harmony 
between two departed souls manifests itself in 



2o6 Soul-Return 



various ways. Sincere friendship between two souls 
means an exalted degree of harmony. In their 
earth-days neither may have known the other ; they 
may have been enemies ; they rarely were friends, 
for earth-friendships are seldom based on soul cur- 
rents. The often-heard question, " Will husband and 
wife be husband and wife in the Hereafter ? " may 
be answered, "Yes, provided their soul-currents are 
highly harmonious." It may also be answered, "No, 
unless their soul-currents are harmonious." Soul- 
life in the Beyond is based on currents of the soul; 
mortal life on terra firma is not based on soul- 
currents, but on currents of the concrete of earth 
and the ether of the spheres. 

The laws of harmony in the ether spheres differ 
from those of terra firma. A mortal's "I love you" 
is of inferior order to the " I love you" whispered by 
one disembodied soul to another. In the former ease 
the allegation is complicated because it includes 
many things that affect a mortal ; in the other case, 
the allegation is simple, meaning merely the blend- 
ing of mutual currents. This blending gives rise to 
the closeness of the two souls. It continues until 
progression becomes unequal and causes separation. 

The concrete world, more properly the world of 
condensed ether, also manifests laws of harmony at 
the surface of the globe. Sodium and chlorine at- 
tract each other, which results in a staff of mortal 
life, viz., salt. Certain electric currents attract one 



Harmonies 207 



another ; their attraction interests mankind in many 
ways, from the chair on which murderers expiate 
their crime to the traction of ponderous vehicles. 
Certain magnetic currents attract one another ; their 
attraction is illustrated by the mariner's compass. 
Rays of light are ether currents of a coarser kind, 
which manifest harmony only in a lower degree. 

The harmony of a mortal's body-currents is dis- 
turbed locally or generally when the mortal is sick. 
A headache, for example, disturbs currents pertain- 
ing to the brain or certain blood-vessels. The effect 
of this disturbance the soul sensates as pain ; it is 
usually expressed by the vocal organs. To find the 
cause of the headache is the business of the phy- 
sician versed in the facts and phenomena, symptoms 
and laws of the human bodv. Sickness, unless of a 
purely nervous character, cannot be cured by genu- 
ine prayer, because even most intensely concentrated 
soul-currents fail to affect the currents of the ailing 
portion of the body. 

A mortal's body-currents are coarse, and his soul- 
currents fine ; consequently his coarse currents 
drown the soul-currents unless the latter be properly 
strengthened and maintained in proper condition. 
When a person is on a sick-bed his soul-currents are 
weak naturally, and his friends on high are less able 
to reach him at such times, unless he has strength- 
ened his soul so as to maintain its currents in har- 
mony with theirs. 



2o8 Soul-Return 



Just when a person is sick he needs and longs for 
the assistance of his invisible friends. He should lay 
the foundation for such comfort while still in good 
health. To get correct communications or even cor- 
rect impressions during one's illness is appreciated 
best by those who spend cheerless, lonely days and 
nights awaiting the return of health. 

Just when a person is sick he ought not to be sick 
in nine cases among ten. If he had been in commu- 
nication with some departed soul for at least a year 
and met it weekly, probably he would not be sick. 
Warnings would have reached him in time ; pre- 
cautionary measures would have been suggested, 
and most likely the causa causans of the disease 
would have left. The study of one's self and one's 
predispositions is one of the many advantages of 
spirit-communion. 

Harmony implies not only a complete blending of 
waves but also a similarity or sameness of velocity. 
The most satisfactory blending of waves or currents 
would fail to produce harmony, however, if one set 
of waves, that is the waves of the currents of one 
individual, had a velocity twice as great as the waves 
of another person's currents. In such a case the 
character of the two sets of currents would not be 
the same ; and the two mortals would not be harmo- 
nious to each other. Perhaps the reader experienced 
a sensation of discord when conversing with a per- 
son of unusual slowness of speech. However har- 
monious the person might be otherwise, the reader 



Harmonies 209 



was indifferent or even repelled. The reason of this 
lay in the difference of velocity of certain vocal cur- 
rents ; and such phenomena go to show that dishar- 
mony may spring even from minor causes. 

Complete harmony between two sets of waves or 
currents demands an additional requirement, viz., 
the waves must be of the same, at least of similar, 
material. Perfect harmony does not exist between a 
negro and a white man, although their waves may 
blend, and their velocity be identical. This dis- 
harmony is owing to the difference in the material 
of the two sets of currents. The frequent disso- 
nances of married persons result often from the dif- 
ference in the material of their currents, the mate- 
rial of the masculine as a rule differing somewhat 
from that of the feminine. 

Harmony is most important in the operation of 
the forces and currents of the universe. Its strongest 
phase may be called Love ; its weakest, Attraction. 
Harmony is a necessary ingredient of daily life ; it 
consumes neither force nor energy, yet it requires 
that its presence be felt or known by every mortal. 
Its ultimate cause or foundation is a mystery. 

Notwithstanding the incessant play of currents in 
and about a mortal he is conscious of comparatively 
few, because he has only a few receptacles through 
which to receive currents, and because each of these 
receptacles is capable of admitting but a very few of 
them, perhaps only one out of every ten million 



2io Soul-Return 



currents. If he is patriotic, learned and brave, and a 
heavy drinker and smoker, he will solemnly assert 
that the world contains only one such current ; that 
he knows it, and that the remaining nine hundred 
ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine cur- 
rents are a swindle and a sham. If he lacks those 
heroic virtues, and is merely a tax-payer, an obliging 
friend and devoted husband, he will duly respect 
those seven figures, and endeavor to become familiar 
with as many currents as possible, knowing that be- 
fore completing his school-days on this planet he 
must study all the ten millions ; and that whatever 
labor in that respect he performs now, he need not 
perform later where such labors are more tedious 
and require more time than they do here below. He 
may be called a harmonious mortal ; he sensates har- 
monies that brainy heads despise. Harmonious mor- 
tals are usually very sensitive. They perfect their 
gift by applying themselves to frequent tests, in 
order to ascertain the correctness of their early 
lessons. 

A developed soul is never in harmony with a 
crude-physical soul. Marriages between individuals 
of the two soul-classes are always unhappy. The 
combination or union is unnatural. The currents of 
the crude constantly rasp the refined currents of the 
other, at first creating inexpressible fatigue ; later, 
inexplicable aversion; and finally abject misery. 
For details on this subject we refer the reader to 



Harmonies 211 



the divorce and alimony columns of the daily news- 
papers. 

The existence of greater harmony between the 
incarnated w r ould result in peace and happiness. 
But to establish these the soul is too weak, too 
ethereal. More than soul-effort is required. It is 
attainable with the aid of the brain. In other words, 
humanity must be instructed in the facts, phenomena 
and harmonies of the ether world in which man has 
his residence. How singular, for him to dwell in 
and breathe a fluid of whose nature, properties and 
possibilities he is ignorant ! 

First, then, in the regeneration of the Physical are 
man's acquaintance and familiarity with the soul ; 
next, his acquaintance and familiarity with his de- 
parted loved ones ; lastly, his acquaintance and 
familiarity with the laws of harmony. Every human 
being save the lowest crude-physical one can master 
the first and the second ; but not every one, perhaps 
not more than seven among ten, can master the last, 
for perfect harmony is one of the qualities of a divine 
soul. 

The happiness of mortals — largely a pleasant 
dream — is based upon the harmony among the 
senses, the harmony between the different parts of 
the body, and that between the brain and the brain- 
aura, all of which is not easily obtained, A person 
may be very healthy, yet be unhappy, if, as is so 



212 Soul-Return 



often the case, discord reigns between his brain and 
his brain-aura. 

The question arises, " Can between two mortals 
harmony exist without love ? " The answer is " No." 
Love is built upon harmony. Anything that weak- 
ens this foundation turns love into hatred. But a 
mere semblance of harmony encouraged by the brain 
and brain-aura may deceive. The great deceivers of 
mankind are the brain and the brain-aura. But 
when the delusion disappears, love disappears also. 

A practical knowledge and understanding of har- 
mony is neither favorable nor desirable, because in its 
effort to master the subject at present the human 
race would misunderstand many of its principles, and 
might be led astray. 

Soul-science and soul-harmony are new phases of 
knowledge. Fifty years ago neither of them was 
known. 

On terra firma, harmony is the exception ; in the 
earth-spheres it is the rule, though not without fre- 
quent exceptions ; in the divine spheres it is all. 

Unbeknown to mankind divine currents seek its 
homes from time to time. Unbeknown to the chil- 
dren of earth the fruit of these currents is ripening 
slowly. They are preparing humanity for the inevi- 
table struggle which is to come in the near future, 
the battle between the darkened and darkening cur- 
rents of benighted crude-physical texts and traditions 
on the one side, and the rising sun of truth on the 



Harmonies 213 



other. The old question shines afresh, "What is 
Truth ? " Readers of this volume comprehend the 
difficulty of answering it, which difficulty those ex- 
perience that live without a conception of the nature 
of facts and facts of nature, nor any idea of the 
essence of what is real. Everything is true that has 
living currents ; everything is untrue, unreal and a 
sham that has no living currents. 

Among the entities of living currents none ranks 
as high as the human Soul. On the stage of earth- 
life it acts in a flesh-and-bone costume. When the 
curtain is down, it lays away this costume, and goes 
home. There it acts without the flesh-and-bone 
mask, in ways that now are known to the reader to 
be natural, real. Humanity loves inversions. It in- 
verts the fact that man is a soul into the pretence 
that he has a soul. The human races will join in 
peace and happiness whenever they restore the 
human soul to all its rights, and relegate inversions 
and brain-dicta to the ash-pile of modern back-yards. 
An inverted pyramid looks inharmonious ; a tight- 
rope performer looks unstable ; a miserly woman 
looks unnatural ; and a crook looks idiotic, because 
man's physical as well as psychic eye seeks harmony 
first, long ere it becomes reconciled to inversions. 



XII 

Conclusion 

THE reader's world, that is, his atmosphere, 
fauna, flora, conditions, activities and pro- 
ductions are materialized portions of a world 
more beautiful, systematic, harmonious and 
refined than the haphazard combination of coarse 
currents and promiscuous ether qualities that con- 
stitute his visible, material world. 

An ether plant is not the same as its correspond- 
ing plant in the material form at the surface of the 
earth. The ether plant is more unfolded, more 
beautiful. When a material plant dies, the ether 
plant, i. e., the soul of the material plant, passes 
away. In the case of a pine, for example, as soon as 
the material pine is dead, the ether pine, which is the 
real pine, passes into the spheres, where it locates at 
a suitable place in space, absorbs ether materials, and 
in about five years obtains its mature growth, if it did 
not obtain it when still in the form. Its fragrance 
penetrates a radius of several miles. The material 
pine was rooted in the soil ; its soul, the ether pine, is 
rooted in' condensed ether ; its branches are in con- 
stant motion, and produce a most refreshing coolness. 
Of all this, mortals perceive nothing. 

214 



Conclusion 215 



A tiger dies. Tigers being crude of soul, the 
tiger, after passing away, remains not far from solid 
ground, and cannot go higher. Many an ethereal 
tiger or other beast of prey, now as gentle as a lamb, 
may have passed through the reader's room. An 
ether tiger is harmless ; but if it were permitted to 
materialize in a cabinet, its propensities of earth 
might reappear and remain until the animal demate- 
rializes. A materialized cat, as it leaps from a mate- 
rializing cabinet into the room, purrs and scratches ; 
a materialized dog barks, and if provoked may bite. 

A man dies. His soul passes to a suitable stratum 
of ether near the place of death, and remains there 
for some time ere it can rise. Its subsequent rise or 
growth depends, as we have seen, upon its ether- 
conditions. 

But when all things are summed up, the problem 
still is open, " Are you quite sure that when a man 
dies he does not die but lives on ? " The answer is : 
"No, we are not quite sure that he does not die; 
but we are sure that he lives on." More than that : 
We are sure that he continues living as if no inter- 
ruption had occurred except such as mortals experi- 
ence once in twenty-four hours, viz., sleep. In a 
certain sense the human body dies every night, but 
lives on the next morning ; and a person would be 
thought idiotic if he maintained that a night's sleep 
meant the discontinuance of life. Of course, in the 
one case the body is stone-dead ; in the other it re- 
ceives a hearty breakfast. 



216 Soul- Return 



If the reader should conclude that it is wrong for 
him to lift the curtain, he certainly cannot be wrong 
to read of his neighbor's lifting it and about his luck 
in doing so. Let him try the dictations of departed 
souls, which are not of the brain but of the soul, not 
of the papier-mache soul he sang of in his youth, but 
the genuine, living soul that loved and hated when it 
inhabited the body ; that cremated its hatred after 
its transition, and preserved and increased its love. 
People read travels in distant lands, in the polar 
regions, in southern climes and elsewhere ; why 
can they not deepen into a few pages written by a 
few departed souls ? 

If it is wrong to lift the curtain, persons can 
at least visit their demised father or mother, or 
other loved one, often enough to enable the soul 
to greet them. Let mortals not grow restless, nor 
flee when the departed loved one is under way. 
Manifesting souls must be given time. Parents 
waited upon their children many a year before the 
little ones reached their growth ; may not the son 
or daughter now wait on them a few days, a few 
minutes ? It helps the parents much more than the 
investigator. 

If it is wrong to lift the curtain, one should at 
least obey the mandate from on high and once a 
week, for ten minutes, sit for centration, not the 
concentration of the mind, but that of the soul, so 
that one's soul-currents shall pass over to the oppo- 
site shore and gradually reach its wonderful homes. 



Conclusion 217 



No one should stop until he has gained the certainty 
that his currents reach his ancestor, his parent of a 
former incarnation, whose home he hopes and prays 
may be his own some day, after many centuries shall 
have passed away. 

In pleasing ways, in joyful moods, in sacred tunes 
man perpetuates his mundane thoughts, while souls 
arrange their lives and ether tasks in even beats. 
In the ethereal homes and cheering fields of heaven 
the accidental, ephemeral and surprising of earthly 
activities is scarcely held worthy of notice. Will it 
harm to foretaste the future by a few occasional 
communions with those commonly denominated 
" departed " who are ever nigh ? 

There may be failures in the beginning. Let the 
investigator in the seance-room remember the fact 
that clear and distinct manifestations, correct mes- 
sages and satisfactory answers demand more or less 
clear and satisfactory conditions, of which not he but 
the invisibles are the judges. The medium is a 
mere instrument, unable to produce the desired 
departed souls. A person that wishes to meet a 
particular departed soul at a sitting should concen- 
trate his soul upon it off and on during a few days 
before. Investigators begin their search usually 
with doubts, hesitation and misgivings. Let them 
keep the brain, the heart and the soul separate from 
one another. If they are too anxious, too brainy, 
too intellectual, too learned, they will obtain what 



218 Soul-Return 



answers or corresponds to the searching element, 
viz., brain-currents. That is, they will draw brain- 
currents from the human battery, for the mani- 
festing souls have no brain-currents to respond 
with, and the brain-currents so drawn will counter- 
act the useful currents of the soul, whereby condi- 
tions are weakened and the manifestations rendered 
poor. 

Again, if investigators come to a seance with 
hearts overflowing, at times near the tear-point, 
perhaps in the memory of happier days spent with 
the demised, they will attract another set of cur- 
rents that weaken the main or more useful soul- 
current, which insures poor manifestations or total 
failure. 

The investigator at a seance should let his brain 
and heart rest in perfect oblivion and permit his 
soul-currents to sally forth. They will attract the 
soul-currents of his loved ones and be a valuable aid 
to him. 

A failure to understand the composite nature of 
seance-currents or battery-currents has caused the 
brainy, the learned and the skeptic many disappoint- 
ments and failures, leading to denials of soul-exist- 
ence and soul-return. The brainy and the learned 
should remember that in examining the unknown 
they deal with a multiplicity of occult currents, 
which they must not presume to attract, treat, ignore 
or classify according to the investigator's accidental 
mood or humor. Ether currents, and ether bodies 



Conclusion 219 



called souls, are entirely different from brain, flesh, 
muscles and bones. 

Nature, when condensing a soul for incarnation, 
wisely deadens all memory of previous life, to pre- 
vent a double life or a multiplicity of lives of the 
ego, which would harass the ego were the memory 
of previous earth-lives and sphere-lives present in 
its mind during the new incarnated life. Such a 
memory would render earth-life an impossibility. 
But the brain, with its inventions and discoveries, 
has created a condition of things on terra firma 
that overpowers soul and heart. The time has 
come, when the soul must receive instruction and 
assert its rights. 

The progress of mankind is based upon one thing 
only : The progress of the individual. It is not con- 
fined to brain unfoldment, aesthetic culture, sensa- 
tional or sentimental dreams about a divine mind or 
other opiates. It includes the individual's knowledge 
of himself and his future. Distorting it into mean- 
ing all sorts of other things does not aid the human 
race, but engenders a falsely pretended state of civil- 
ization of an insecure kind, supported by bayonets, 
doctrines and cannon. Cutting off heads ; passing 
laws of portentous phraseology ; parading senti- 
ments ; issuing doctrines ; publishing edicts and 
distributing property, — all these and a hundred 
other occupations and crowning acts only bring 



22o Soul-Return 



about the government of blood, the rule of Nero, 
the reign of zero. 

History teaches that most revolutions are sown in 
good intentions, reared amid favorable conditions, 
and killed in ignorance of soul and self. The next 
revolution threatens to be a repetition of former ones 
unless a generation grows up that knows how to 
drink the currents of peace, inhale the currents of 
forgiveness, and enjoy the vapors of unselfishness. 
The diver at the bottom of the earth's ether ocean 
should first learn who he is, what he is, and why he 
is here below. No one as yet has taught him that. 
He should have an opportunity to unfold. Then will 
terrible war, misery, starvation and plagues become 
unknown, and History cease its horrors. 

The new forces will enlighten mankind concern- 
ing the souls that made the last two thousand years 
of the world's history. With few exceptions they 
were of a low quality. Many have been cast in 
stone or bronze, and cut in steel and copper ; and 
fools engrave them upon the tender and sensitive 
brains of the young. The new forces will sing in a 
different key, viz., the key of harmonious truths, 
without accidentals, flats, sharps or transposition. 
It will be a straight tune, lofty enough to elevate 
humanity ; thorough enough to mark a harmonious, 
even tempo in the base. The tune will be simple, 
yet speak of all that vibrates in the human heart. 
Notwithstanding clouds, darkness and rain there 
will be love, mirth and happiness finding their way 



Conclusion 221 



earthward; seeking and finding a new race relieved 
of worry and care, free from fraud to its kind and 
from adulation to the gods. Either of these is as 
foreign to the development of the soul as is a shop- 
lifter to a self-sacrificing divine heroine. 



XIII 

Questions and Answers 

The following Questions are substantially questions that we 
hear persons ask and discuss from time to time. The Answers are 
our own. — The Authors. 

1. Question. Since organic life means soui-life 
in a form, what is meant by inorganic life ? 

Answer. Inorganic life means the existence or 
life of condensed, i. e., materialized ether devoid of 
soul. 

2. Q. Why are some persons clairvoyant, and 
some persons mediumistic ? 

A. Some persons are clairvoyant and some are 
mediumistic because the properties of different auras 
are different. Both clairvoyance and mediumship 
depend upon aura-properties. 

3. Q. How do we know that a speedy reunion 
with some friend or loved one still living in the form 
benefits the departed more than it benefits the mor- 
tal friend or loved one ? 

A. We know that a speedy reunion of the de- 
parted with a mortal friend or loved one benefits the 
departed more than the mortal from the fact that the 
departed so state. 

4. Q. Suppose a person dies at noon, where will 
his soul be say at six o'clock of the same day ? 



Questions and Answers 223 

A. Six hours after a person's transition his soul 
will be still near his death-bed or place of demise. 
If the soul is a dark one it will be close to the ground ; 
if it is a developed soul it will be higher up ; if it is 
a highly developed soul, perhaps as high as the roof 
of the building in which it passed out. 

5. Q. Could a clairvoyant see a recently liber- 
ated soul ? 

A. A clairvoyant may see a recently liberated 
soul, provided the soul can condense sufficiently to 
become visible to him. 

6. Q. What is clairaudience ? 

A. Clairaudience is a psychic gift enabling its 
owner at times to hear " voices," that is, the speech 
of disembodied souls. 

7. Q. What is the main difference between a 
mortal before and the same mortal after death ? 

A. The main difference between a mortal before 
and after death is the fact, that after death the mate- 
rial body is dead ; and the soul that inhabited it is 
liberated or disembodied, and enjoys greater freedom 
and greater capacities than it could enjoy during its 
incarnated state. 

8. Q. How will a profound knowledge of incar- 
nation and its purpose help the great number of 
highly sensitive beings on terra firma ? 

A. A profound knowledge of incarnation and its 
purpose helps the great number of highly sensitive 
beings by making them understand, that they are too 
well developed for the coarse fibres of their mortal 



J24 Soul-Return 



bodies. To understand that, is to escape great un- 
happiness. 

9. Q. Do automatic writers also get independent 
slate-writing ? 

A. Good automatic writers do not get indepen- 
dent slate-writing. The two phases have nothing 
in common with each other. Automatic writing 
is performed through the hand of the instru- 
ment; the other writing, termed independent, is 
disconnected entirely from the hand of the instru- 
ment. 

10. Q. Were the pages of this book written in 
daylight ? 

A. Some of the chapters of this book were writ- 
ten in an entirely darkened room ; others, by the 
light of a small lamp. No portion of the book was 
written in broad daylight. 

11. Q. How did the writer of this volume know 
when to write ? 

A. The writer of this volume was impressed to 
sit down to write; but this was done only in his own 
apartment. Frequently, after being seated, the room 
entirely dark, and having the paper before him and 
pencil in hand ready for the task, he spent a few 
minutes in waiting and was then told, " We can get 
nothing ; we will return at — — o'clock/' At other 
times he was told simply to wait because " we 
are debating" ; or a lack of conditions requisite for 
automatic writing was indicated, and he was told to 
come later. 



Questions and Answers 225 

12. Q. How was the instrument told, " We can 
get nothing/' etc ? 

A. By a control speaking with the vocal chords 
of the instrument, after the manner of trance-mediums 
when they speak under control. 

13. Q. How sure is the writer of this book, 
that he wrote without his brain or mind cooper- 
ating ? 

A. The writer of this book can, and before his 
demise will, testify under oath that he knew nothing 
of its contents before it was begun ; that neither 
from day to day, nor from one sitting to another did 
he know what was going to be written with his hand; 
and that while writing automatically he did not know 
the word coming next, nor the coming line. Also, 
that prior to beginning to write automatically he had 
no preparation or knowledge of the subject-matter. 
In other words, his brain, mind, thoughts and con- 
sciousness had nothing to do with what was written 
automatically through his hand. 

14. Q. How long was the writer of this book in 
developing his phase of automatic writing for practi- 
cal use ? 

A. The development of the writer of this book 
into an automatic instrument of practical usefulness 
lasted several years, and was connected with trouble 
to him and his controls ; also with loss of time and 
comfort on his part. The history of his development 
will be published soon, with specimens of writing he 
obtained while developing. 



226 Soul-Return 



1 S- Q- Why does the writer of this book sign by 
a nom de plume f 

A. He does so on the adyice of the Authors, for 
personal protection and freedom from annoyance. 

16. Q. Why are soul-phenomena often ascribed 
to most any other cause than the powers of departed 
souls ? 

A. Soul-phenomena are often ascribed to other 
causes than the powers of departed souls, because 
mortals fear the thoroughness of life which soul- 
science and its tenets will produce and dissemi- 
nate. Another reason lies in the strict and em- 
phatic prohibition against soul-return by influential 
classes of persons, including the organizations of 
the crude-physical, whose interests would suffer 
if the facts of soul-return became common prop- 
erty. 

17. Q. How may we account for the appearance 
of materialized souls, or "walking ghosts," in so- 
called haunted apartments ? 

A. The brief presence of materialized souls on 
stairways or in apartments is owing to the presence 
of a sufficiency of aura-currents belonging, or formerly 
belonging, to some mediumistic mortal of the material- 
izing phase. 

18. Q. Why does a materialized soul before it 
dematerializes, return to the cabinet, and close the 
curtain behind it ? 

A. A materialized soul returns to the cabinet to 
dematerialize, and closes the curtain, to prevent the 



Questions and Answers 227 

gaseous contents of materials in the cabinet from 
dissipating into the seance-room. 

19. Q. Why do most materialized female souls 
wear veils ? 

A. Most materialized female souls wear veils, 
because the artificial substance of which their face 
is composed dematerializes easily ; that is, dissolves 
readily when exposed to light rays, even in dim 
illumination. For the same reason many material- 
izing souls wear gloves. 

20. Q. Why do materialized souls as a rule 
speak in a whisper ? 

A. As a rule materialized departed souls speak in 
a whisper in order to save the force of the medium. 
Nothing being gained by loud talking ; and a saving 
of force being certain by using subdued tones, no rea- 
son exists why the forms should speak above a whisper. 

21. Q. Why may a materialized departed soul 
be unable to pass closely by some particular sitter 
when making the round of the audience, but must 
give him a wide berth ? 

A. When a materialized departed soul, making 
the round of the audience in a seance-room, comes 
close to a sitter of the earth-bound class it will give 
him a wide berth, because the aura of such a person 
is a serious obstacle to the soul's attempting to cross 
it. It acts like a brick wall standing across a per- 
son's path, 

22. Q. Why is singing or any kind of music 
necessary in a materializing seance ? 



228 Soul-Return 



A. Singing or any other kind of music is neces- 
sary at a materializing seance because it stirs the 
air, by which commotion the ether in the room is set 
in motion. Now ether in motion tends to favor the 
formation of ether waves and currents in the cabinet, 
which in turn aids in making up the forms. 

23. Q. Why may the cultivation or propagation 
of skeptic, i. e., polarized aura-currents of a single 
sitter in a materializing seance, weaken the forms 
and therefore spoil the seance ? 

A. The skeptic, i. e., polarized aura-currents of a 
sitter in a materializing seance, may weaken the forms 
and therefore spoil the seance, because they tend to 
overcome or neutralize the main current of the 
human battery. If the main current be of the ordi- 
nary strength, a quantitatively stronger skeptical 
current will weaken, i. e., partly neutralize it ; that 
is, the stronger current will prevent success. 

24. Q. Why will a sitter in a materializing 
circle draw no "ethereal visitor " who fixes his 
thoughts on the possible results of his presence at 
the seance, and on the question of success or failure 
of his psychic investigation ? 

A. Such a sitter polarizes a large portion of his 
aura-currents whereby he weakens himself and there- 
fore also his invisible friends. 

25. Q. Why do most forms manifesting at a 
materializing seance appear to have the same size ? 

A. Most forms manifesting at a materializing 
seance have seemingly the same size, because of the 



Questions and Answers 229 

neglect in this regard on the part of the materializing 
souls. During earth-life their size was a property of 
the body, which after transition they deem unimpor- 
tant. 

26. Q. Why is there more than one mode of 
conducting materializing seances, differing mainly in 
the manner and the location of the medium ? 

A. The variety of modes in which materializing 
seances are conducted are owing to the individual 
characteristics of mediums, each having his per- 
sonal equation, and requiring a special mode of 
conducting his seances. Some mediums sit outside 
of the cabinet without being entranced during 
the seance, which is a deviation from the usual 
course. 

27. Q. Why does the materialization of souls 
not succeed in cabinets erected in crowded halls ? 

A. Materialization cannot be successful in crowded 
halls because every crowd contains a large percent- 
age of crude-physical and earth-bound currents, 
which spoil materializing currents. 

28. Q. Who selects the controls of a material- 
izing medium ? 

A. The controls of a materializing medium are 
selected by souls of the eighth sphere. The proper 
selection is a difficult task. Great care must be 
taken to harmonize and blend the aura-currents of 
the controls and the medium. If the medium has a 
coarse aura, his controls are coarse souls and often 
cause coarse conduct during the seance. 



230 Soul-Return 



29. Q. What part do Indian souls play at 
materializing seances ? 

A. Indian souls at materializing seances stand 
guard round the cabinet, like sentinels, controlling 
the ingress and egress of souls and preventing the 
earth-bound class from entering the cabinet. 

30. Q. What would the presence of a few earth- 
bound souls at a materializing seance accomplish ? 

A. The effect of the presence, at a materializing 
seance, of a few earth-bound souls would be the up- 
setting of every preparation made in the way of 
condensed substances such as form-materials and 
clothes. Besides, the fiends might overpower the 
controls, force them to attire the medium as a spirit, 
and send him so attired out before the audience. 
They may impress a crude-physical mortal among 
the sitters to grasp the medium, and then rush into 
the newspapers with a so-called expose. This occurs 
from time to time, especially when the Indian forces 
are weak. 

31. Q. What will materialization ultimately re- 
sult in ? 

A. Materialization will establish a new era in the 
religious views of humanity. With the increasing 
sensitiveness of man the number of materializing 
mediums will increase, the forms build up stronger, 
and the investigators learn many laws of this class 
of manifestations. 

32. Q. Why are children usually bright and 
strong when they materialize ? 



Questions and Answers 231 

A. Children, in materializing, are usually bright 
and strong because their currents easily mingle with 
the electric of the body-currents of the sitters. 

33- Q- Which country counts the greatest num- 
ber of materializing seances in a year ? 

A. The greatest number of materializing seances 
in a year occur in France. 

34. Q. How is fraud coming from or through a 
trance-instrument best guarded against ? 

A. Fraud coming from or through a trance- 
instrument cannot be guarded against in the strict 
sense of the term " guard," because a mortal at a sit- 
ting cannot prevent the psychic fraud of the instru- 
ment or of crude-physical departed souls. But such 
fraud may often, and with some instruction in soul- 
science always, be detected. A few general rules 
are: 

1. Do not rely implicitly upon a message obtained 
at the first sitting with any medium. 

2. Do not interrupt. Interruption facilitates the 
friendly control's being subdued by a crude-physical 
soul. 

3. At the close of the message ask for a special 
test. But avoid soliciting items that are brain-traces 
buried or cremated with the brain, such as numbers, 
places, etc., or "What was your nurse called?" 
" How long have you been dead ? " " Who was with 
you when you died ? " " How many napkins were in 
the big closet ? " " Who was the ruler of your 
country when you died ? " etc. 



232 Soul-Return 



You may ask for a test involving past events ; 
the cause and effect of past incidents and the like, 
such as, " Please state what happened the day 
before our wedding ?" " What caused my leaving 
Paris?" "'What became of your favorite horse?" 
etc. 

35- Q- What is mind? 

A. Mind is the aggregate of one's brain-traces, 
together with the vibrations of the brain-aura. 

36. Q. What is mind- reading ? 

A. Mind-reading is the cognition by a departed 
soul of certain brain-aura vibrations. No mortal can 
cognize or read the mind of another, for mortals can- 
not grasp or sensate the ether currents, i. e., the 
amplitude and length of the waves of an ether cur- 
rent of the brain-aura. 

The knowledge a departed soul obtains from the 
analysis of such currents it impresses upon a mortal's 
brain, and the mortal announces it in human lan- 
guage. The entire process is covered, in common 
parlance, by the term " mind-reading " ; and people 
erroneously believe one mortal can read the mind of 
another. 

37. Q. Can the control of a psychic instrument, 
or any other mediumistic person, read one's mind ? 

A. Neither a psychic instrument nor any other 
mediumistic person nor any human being can read 
the mind of another. But by long-continued prac- 
tice a control may learn to read certain portions of 
the mind, i. e., brain-aura of his instrument. 



Questions and Answers 233 

38. Q. In what manner does a departed soul 
control a trance-medium ? 

A. No general rule exists regarding the mode or 
manner in which a departed soul may control, i. e., 
occupy, a trance-medium. It is governed by the 
conditions and quality of the mediumistic aura. One 
medium's soul is entirely displaced when under con- 
trol ; another's soul is " deadened " in part. Each 
medium presents a separate and distinct case. 

39. Q. Why are the ordinary impressions of an 
undeveloped or uninstructed instrument or person 
incorrect, in most cases treacherous and dangerous ? 

A. The ordinary impressions of an undeveloped 
or uninstructed medium or person are incorrect, 
and generally treacherous and dangerous, because 
they arise from the intrusion of crude-physical souls 
into the aura of such persons. Frequently, as a 
result of the ignorance of such mediums or in- 
dividuals, trouble and harm arise from their impres- 
sions. 

40. Q. When are impressions upon mediumistic 
mortals reliable ? 

A. Impressions upon mediumistic persons are 
reliable, if 

1 They are received at his home, the soul-home 
mentioned in the text. 

2. Each impression is distinctly connected with 
some test. 

3. The mediumistic person, by means of proper 
diet and obedience to other sanitary rules, is capable 



234 Soul-Return 



of preventing crude-physical elements from entering 
or disturbing his aura. 

41. Q. What restrictions regarding diet are 
placed upon mediumistic persons ? 

A. Mediumistic persons should avoid the meat of 
warm-blooded animals ; heavy vegetables such as cab- 
bage, beans and beets ; heavy fruit such as cherries, 
pears and apples ; alcoholic beverages ; tea, coffee 
and tobacco. Cocoa should take the place of tea and 
coffee ; and fowl be taken once a week. 

42. Q. Why are good seers rare ? 

A. Good seers are rare, because the auras are 
rare that can receive and sensate the extremely 
attenuate currents of future events. Besides re- 
ceiving this class of currents their auras must be 
able to translate them after receiving them ; that 
is, to lead them to the brain, to be reduced to human 
language. 

43- Q- Why do many mortals conceal, disown, 
or, if they can, destroy their mediumistic properties? 

A. Many persons, on discovering that they pos- 
sess mediumistic properties, conceal, disown, or de- 
stroy them, because they lack proper instruction 
concerning their slumbering gifts. This refers to 
the educated or intelligent class of mediumistic per- 
sons. The repression alluded to results from popu- 
lar prejudice and ignorance, mixed with a spirit of 
malice. It causes the well-known scarcity of correct 
instruments. And without correct instruments no 
knowledge can become systematized. Soul-science 



Questions and Answers 235 

needs well-trained mediums, just as physical science 
requires true and correct instruments. 

44. Q, Why may a medium be " morally bad," 
yet give good tests and correct communications from 
the Beyond ? 

A. A medium may be " morally bad," yet give 
good tests and correct communications from the 
Beyond, because the mediumistic properties of his 
aura may be wonderfully good, although its quality 
be physical. In such a case the medium in his actions 
may echo the actions of his crude controls which 
they committed in their last earth-life. In other 
words, the medium may be led unconsciously, even 
unwillingly, to the commission of acts denominated 
"morally bad." 

45. Q. Why are the means of developing a me- 
diumistic person wrongly believed to be complicated ? 

A. The means of developing a mediumistic per- 
son are wrongly believed to be complicated, because 
man first investigates and exhausts what is false and 
complicated before he finds the simple truth Sim- 
plicity is a part of perfection. 

46. Q. Can the proposition that Simplicity is a 
part of perfection be applied to soul-science ? 

A. Yes. The facts and phenomena of soul- 
science and the deductions therefrom are simple ; 
but the explanations of the causes or laws underly- 
ing them are difficult. The explanations lead to a 
simple religious system, superseding complicated 
theories and unintelligible brain-dogmas. The past 



236 Soul-Return 



four or five thousand years have seen the rise of the 
Jewish, Persian, Indian, Christian and Mahometan 
systems, built in the dark ages, none of them suffi- 
ciently simple or plain for practical use. They are 
giving way to the plain and simple facts of the human 
soul. As soul-knowledge rises and takes its place in 
the scientific field those systems sink. The basis of 
soul-science are the facts of soul-life, soul-return and 
soul-future. Being simple, unobtrusive, indisput- 
able, unrevengeful facts of nature, they supersede all 
fantastic images and nebulous verbal edifices. 

47. Q. Can one investigate the facts of soul- 
return, receive communications from the Beyond and 
meet his departed loved ones, yet be and remain a 
church-member ? 

A. A person may remain a church-member while 
he is investigating the facts of soul-return in any of 
its phases, just as one may be a Christian without 
adhering to the cosmogony of the Old Testament. 

48. Q. What is the final advantage of soul- 
science ? 

A. The final advantage of soul-science over all 
mortal systems consists in this, that it alone can ele- 
vate the human race on terra firma. The elevation 
of the human race can be accomplished only by 
eliminating its great curses : greed, revenge and war. 
They are the enemies to its progression. The sys- 
tems mentioned under Q. 46 have shown themselves 
incapable of eliminating them. 

49- Q- Will the banishment of greed, revenge 



Questions and Answers 237 

and war from mortal life affect the departed souls ? 
And if it will, in what way ? 

A. The banishment of greed, revenge and war 
will affect both the departed and the incarnated bene- 
ficially. It will promote longevity on terra firm a, 
whereby the souls entering the spheres in the future 
will be better developed. This will lighten the labors 
of the departed and hasten their progression It will 
also lighten the tasks of the divine souls, and permit 
their earlier departure from this globe. 

50. Q. Why are crude-physical disembodied souls 
hostile to the correct and honest manifestation of 
soul-facts ? 

A. The crude-physical portion of the Beyond, to 
which may be added the crude-physical portion of the 
incarnated — the two really form one body psychic — 
are hostile to the correct and honest manifestations 
of soul-facts anywhere, because their auras are too 
coarse to seize or comprehend psychic facts. An ox 
cannot grasp the beauty of the rising moon because 
its aura is too coarse. The dog has a better concep- 
tion of it, for a dog's aura is less coarse. A mortal 
of crude-physical soul may have an Olympic brain and 
Newtonian learning, yet will he fight the facts of 
soul-science because his aura is coarse and crude. 
After his demise he continues the fight for a cen- 
tury or longer. His aura is so constituted that it 
deprives him of inwardly-directed aura-reflection, a 
subject that cannot as yet be explained to mortals, 
because too difficult and in need of new terms which 



238 Soul-Return 



soul-science must first establish. His deprivation is 
characteristic of the lower classes of human auras 
and the higher animals. It induces the belief in him 
that ether manifestations, ether condensation and 
the laws of higher induction are crimes and wrongs, 
just as in the dark ages things were considered 
crimes that are now held to be honorable. 

51. Q. Why cannot a mortal of high education 
but of crude-physical soul investigate as calmly, 
patiently and perseveringly as one of a well-de- 
veloped soul ? 

A. A highly educated crude-physical mortal lacks 
the patience, will and good faith necessary to the 
investigation of soul-facts. A coarse condition pre- 
dominates in his aura, whereby his soul dominates 
his brain, and dictates conditions to nature under 
which alone he will " believe/* as he says. This 
peculiar condition of brain and soul-coarseness 
polarizes his aura and brain-aura to such an extent 
that the returning and wishing-to-manifest soul can- 
not stay, and will be prevented from manifesting by 
crude attracted forces. There will be fraudulent 
answers or a total failure of response. The crude 
forces here mentioned are attracted by the crude 
aura of the crude-souled mortal. 

The same is true when committees investigate 
mediums. They are of mixed, and of anxious, 
auras ; hence their results are generally nil. The 
learned mortal of crude-physical aura should not 
meddle with what is unattainable to him. His place 



Questions and Answers 239 

is at the investigating table of the coarser elements 
of nature, such as the physical or medical sciences, 
wherein his crude aura will hinder him less. 

52. Q. What individual has done most for the 
progress of the human race in the ~ast two thousand 
years ? 

A. The individual that in the past two thousand 
years has done most for the human race is Jesus of 
Nazareth. He was enabled to do what he did do for 
humanity through his wonderfully fine and highly 
developed aura, and its strongly mediumistic prop- 
erties. This combination enabled him to get com- 
munications from ancient souls and deliver them 
unchanged. Had not a few physical souls at 
times stolen access to, and taken advantage of, his 
mediumistic properties to give exciting and provok- 
ing communications through him, he could have 
lived unmolested. 

53- Q- What is a sensible course of life to lead? 

A. A sensible course of life requires essentially 
three things : An occupation seriously followed ; 
daily mirth and happiness ; and intercourse with 
one's friends on high. There is enough of the first ; 
not enough of the second; too little of the third. 
A happy, cheerful and merry soul-feeding mortal has 
more credit in the higher realms than one sour-faced 
who forever criticises somebody or something. The 
sour fellow has no account there, because he deposits 
nothing. Whatever soul-force he has is spent in 
things electric. 



240 Soul-Return 



54. Q. How may soul-facts be investigated ? 

A, First, find an instrument that cares more for 
truth and success than financial compensation ; next, 
remember that success is impossible at a sitting in 
which books, business, aunts, cousins, gossip or 
literature fill one's head. Third, whatever is ob- 
tained should be kept private for some time. Lastly, 
in spite of preliminary failures or obstacles the 
search should be kept up. Success is inevitable, for 
reasons now known to the reader. 

55. Q. In the case of a thief that escapes pun- 
ishment, what is his lot in the next world ? 

A. A person's theft is conspicuous in his aura. 
He cannot escape his aura. His aura is spotted. He 
was a thief here below, because his aura was spotted. 
His punishment in the Beyond is certain, for it is a 
consequence of his aura-condition. The thief will 
be in the company of low souls, unable to rise, los- 
ing valuable time. All of which, to a disembodied 
soul, is a severe punishment, a terrible calamity. 

56. Q. What becomes of a spotted soul after 
transition ? 

A. It remains near the surface of the earth, 
which to a disembodied soul is like being chained to 
a post in a cellar. In common parlance it is hell. 

57. Q. How may the human aura be developed 
or improved in one's earth-life ? 

A. By genuine prayer ; kind thoughts; just acts. 

58. Q. What reward has the Beyond for mor- 
tals ? 



Questions and Answers 241 

A. Quick progression, i. e., rapid transit to the 
divine zones, which to a disembodied soul is all that 
is grand and desirable. Punishment and reward, so- 
called, are not strange freaks of nature, but the 
results of psychic laws fixed and immutable like the 
law that heat expands all bodies. Owing to the fact 
that it lacks ripeness, earth-life is a punishment 
rather than a reward. 

59. Q. How do disembodied souls arrange for 
visiting their loved ones at certain hours ? How do 
they know what is the clock ? 

A. Departed souls performing earth-labors post 
themselves on solar and local time. The clocks in their 
ethereal mansions are made of strongly condensed 
ether, similar to the material clocks of mortals. 
Although departed souls inhabiting the earth -spheres 
never see the sun, their days have the length of earth- 
days for the sake of convenience. 

60. Q. If clocks in the spheres are made of 
ether of a less degree of condensation, of what nature 
or composition is this ether ? 

A. By means of their sensing capacity disem- 
bodied souls know and select iron currents, i. e., iron 
ether, the primeval substance of the metal which in 
its solid form is known as iron. Mortals know iron, 
i. e., solidified iron currents, through their senses. 
Ether currents exist in the earth's aura in myriads of 
kinds, grades and qualities. Departed souls experi- 
ence no difficulty in converting copper and zinc with 
some other ingredients into an alloy, by a process 



242 Soul-Return 



unlike that of mortal metallurgy. A thorough study 
of materialization based on the methods of science 
will amply demonstrate the truth of this brief allu- 
sion. In most respects the reader's mortal world 
is a trashy imitation of the ether realms. Whatever 
is found in a condensed state at the surface of the 
globe is a poor counterfeit of the corresponding 
ether item in the spheres. Even human thought is 
a faint imitation — as a general thing a poor one — 
of the original thought existing in the world above. 

A building planned by a mortal architect is first 
erected in his brain-aura as a thought-product. This 
product consists of factors or elements drawn from 
the spheres. If the architect is mediumistic, or, in 
the language of the world, talented ; or a genius, i. e , 
a medium of extraordinary power, these factors or 
elements are moulded, shaped and combined with the 
aid of attracted souls who in their last incarnatediife 
were experts in planning buildings, The stronger 
his mediumistic capacity, the higher the character of 
the attracted souls. 

Should the reader find it difficult to conceive in- 
visible objects composed of strongly condensed ether, 
let him remember that a clairaudient person hears 
the result of ether tongues in motion, viz , words 
clearly enounced by departed souls ; and that these 
words in no wise differ from the same words emitted 
by mortal tongue. 

61. Q. Since the ether organism called a "dis- 
embodied soul " resembles in all respects the clay 



Questions and Answers 243 

organism called the Lord of Creation, how do disem- 
bodied souls take food, and how do they digest it ? 

A. The organs of a disembodied soul are the real, 
the original organs. As a result of the incarnation 
of the soul certain portions of them are materialized; 
the Lord of Creation possesses the aggregate of these 
materialized parts. A disembodied soul has a mouth, 
tongue, aesophagus, stomach, intestinal canal, and so 
forth. It absorbs fumes ; it digests them after the 
manner of the digestion of the material body. In- 
stead of drinking it absorbs a peculiar kind of water 
vapor, i. e., aqueous spray, much finer than the water 
vapor of the material world. Disembodied souls, be- 
ginning with the third sphere, have flower gardens 
round their homes, the vapors of which are food to 
them. 

62. Q. Suppose a cannon-ball, flying through 
the air with a velocity of twelve hundred feet per 
second of time, happens to pass through a disem- 
bodied soul, what becomes of the soul ? 

A. The flight of the cannon ball has no effect 
upon the soul. The substance of which a disem- 
bodied soul is composed is so rare that an iron ball 
passing through it does not affect it. What happens 
in such a case resembles the stirring up of a pond 
with a stick : after removing the stick the water flows 
together again and forms the original body of the 
liquid, regardless of the previous disturbance. Soul- 
ether passes through the iron at the same time that 
the iron passes through the soul-ether. In other 



244 Soul-Return 



words, if the ball were suspended in mid-air, and at 
rest, and a soul traversed it at the rate of twelve 
hundred feet a second of time, the soul would suffer 
no change. A solid body is so densely coarse that a 
rare fluid like ether passes through it, or it through 
ether, without the slightest alteration. This is an- 
alogous to the fact that rays of light are not inter- 
fered with by the severest storm. 

63. Q. What is the velocity and mode of motion 
of disembodied souls ? What is their position dur- 
ing motion ? 

A. The soul is an ether organism, a magnetic 
entity. Except in the case of mediumistic auras its 
magnetic field is not large. One pole of the soul is 
in the aura of the brain ; the other in the aura of the 
generative organ. All souls, when in motion at the 
surface of the earth, are in an upright position, es- 
pecially when on duty in a mortal aura. When they 
pass through the air, their velocity is usually a trifle 
greater than that of rays of light, and smaller than 
that of most currents in the human body. Between 
points at some distance from one another, souls 
generally move with their body in a horizontal posi- 
tion, head to rear, their front toward the earth. 

Earth-sphere souls have no vision, but they 
" sense," and they move by means of currents ; 
they are aware of the darkness around them. When 
two disembodied souls are near one another, in order 
that they may sense each other, that is, know of 
each other's presence, a current must pass from one 



Questions and Answers 245 

to the other. They see each other, however, when 
they happen to be in the aura of an instrument har- 
monious to both. 

64. Q. How is the sex of infants predeter- 
mined ? 

A. The sex of infants is predetermined by the 
incarnation of the soul. Souls are either male or 
female. The result of the incarnation of a male soul 
is a male infant ; that of the incarnation of a female 
soul is a female infant. 

65. Q. Is attraction between the sexes known 
in the Beyond ? 

A. Attraction between the sexes is known in the 
Beyond, inasmuch as many a disembodied male soul 
prefers associating with a disembodied female soul. 
Even divine souls find this difficult to explain. Mor- 
tal sex-passion, however, is unknown in the Beyond. 

66. Q. Why is soul-science neglected ? 

A. Soul-science is neglected because the physical 
elements of human society oppose it, A large num- 
ber of men, and many who don men's clothes, fear 
the establishment of soul-science, because it might 
disestablish them ; which leads them to declare, that 
the facts and phenomena of soul-science are the 
works of Satan. That is, your loved one appear- 
ing, giving you tests of identity, good advice, hints 
toward living an unselfish life, and the admonition 
to forgive your enemy, they maintain is the mani- 
festation of Satan. This pretence has weight with 
the ignorant. 



246 Soul-Return 



67. Q. Why is not the human soul studied like 
other subjects such as, e. g., the human body? Why 
is it a plaything at the mercy of trapeze-performers ? 

A. People do not notice the soul as they notice a 
volcano in full activity. Nor does it impress them 
with the same importance as the human body or the 
brain. The world appreciates, first, gold ; next, the 
human body ; third, the brain. The soul might 
stand forth in order, if its rank in society could be 
arranged. 

68. Q. Why did not soul-knowledge come 
earlier ? 

A. Had soul-knowledge come earlier it would 
have lacked intelligibility. It is based on ether 
currents, not on brain-made idols or painted images 
and old texts. It needed the world's progress, in- 
ventions, discoveries, ether facts and ether phe- 
nomena that were quarried in the past century. If 
at the time Peter of Amiens inflamed motley crowds 
to start a crusade in quest of certain bones a mortal 
had attempted to explain electric and magnetic 
attraction, repulsion and currents, the revolution of 
the earth, the telegraph, telephone and graphophone, 
not his days but his minutes would have been num- 
bered. 

At about that period of time began the era of 
human torture, mutilation and slaughter, which 
directly and indirectly destroyed over a hundred 
million human lives. To cite only one instance : 
The Duke of Alba tortured human beings in the 



Questions and Answers 247 

Netherlands without cause ; hanged estimable citi- 
zens without a hearing, and executed persons under 
sham-proceedings, killing not less than eighteen 
thousand persons during his brief authority in that 
country. Which so delighted a distinguished Italian 
that he sent Alba a consecrated sword, calling him 
his "dear and beloved son"; and to Alba's chief, 
King Philip II of Spain, he sent a letter of thanks 
and blessings for Alba's course. In those days the 
contents of this volume would have been neither 
comprehensible nor acceptable. Things were con- 
sidered important at that time which now no longer 
interest humanity. 

69. Q. What causes the grotesque variety of 
faces in a crowd ? 

A. The grotesque variety of faces in a crowd is 
caused by the fact that no two souls are alike. Indi- 
vidualism is a principle of nature. 

70. Q. What notions, entertained by mortals, 
seem particularly odd to departed souls ? 

A. The following are some of the notions that 
seem odd to departed souls : Nothing exists except 
what is visible to mortals ; an individual ceases to 
exist when his body dies ; individuals in order to 
exist must have flesh and bones ; the only real 
things are those which man can grasp with the 
senses ; gaseous individuals such as souls are a 
myth ; the universe is made specially for queen- 
bees ; the souls of this globe are vastly better than 
those of other globes ; the government of the earth 



248 Soul-Return 



is left to a lot of hoodlums ; nature is a poor 
madam fenced in by philosophers and wiseacres; 
nature cares more for one people than for an- 
other. 

71. Q How should mortals view the material 
forms and duties of life ? 

A. A mortal should not be bewildered by the 
great varieties of physical forms and appearances, 
nor believe that they are the truth and essence of 
what they claim to be. They should be viewed 
merely as nature's means of soul-progression. Nor 
should he neglect earth-life's possibilities in the con- 
templation of the future and the Beyond. He is 
placed within the electric of the earth for a wise 
purpose ; his paramount duty is to be human, and 
engage in human pursuits. But his instruction, 
guidance and control in worldly as well as ethereal 
matters require his proximity to one or more of his 
departed loved ones. 

72. Q. Are legal divorces needed? 

A. Legal divorces are needed and desirable 
wherever they promote the happiness and prosperity 
of either party They are as desirable as marriages. 
Instruction in soul-science will diminish divorces, 
and increase the number of marriages. 

73- Q- What becomes of the divine souls ? 

A. The divine souls, having completed their 
immense tasks in the earth-spheres and studied the 
currents of the earth's aura and its souls, leave this 
planet by means of currents specially adapted to this 



Questions and Answers 249 

purpose. Some of them proceed to Jupiter ; the 
others to Saturn. Every human being, even the 
lowest savage, however dull his brain, must ulti- 
mately become a divine soul, and after long ages 
depart for either of those planets. 

74. Q. How do we know that Jupiter and Saturn 
are populated by disembodied souls ? 

A. Ancient divine souls of the upper portion of 
the tenth sphere of the earth's aura, have stated that 
planets Jupiter and Saturn are populated by such 
souls. Their information imports absolute verity. 
Occasionally a message passes between the earth 
and either of the two planets, generally Jupiter. It 
comes in pictures ; it is wafted to our globe by 
magnetic currents of a peculiar kind that strike the 
earth after the manner of the light rays that come 
from those planets. The message-currents are so 
attenuated that only the oldest tenth-sphere souls 
can decipher them. 

75. Q. When will the last mortal leave this 
globe ? 

A. The transition of the last mortal upon our 
globe will not differ from the ordinary occurrence 
called death. Nature does not change her plan 
regarding the soul's terrestrial progression The 
time elapsing until reincarnation shall cease upon 
this planet is long. The influence of the crude- 
physical at the surface of the globe and in the earth- 
spheres prevents its being shortened. 

76. Q. What is Telepathy? 



250 Soul-Return 



A. Telepathy is the sensation or impression 
experienced by a mortal who sensates attenuated 
ether currents, generally those coming from a dis- 
tance, 

77- Q- What is Hypnotism ? 

A. Hypnotism is the disturbing effect of a de- 
parted soul upon portions or a portion of a human 
aura and one or more organ-auras. By " disturbing 
effect " is meant that the respective organ-aura or 
aura-portion is deprived of the motion of its particles 
among themselves. 

78. Q. What is Suggestion ? 

A. Suggestion as applied to hypnosis is the aid 
of the brain-aura in the work of the departed soul 
that wishes to hypnotize. 

79. Q. How may war and bloodshed be dimin- 
ished for the present, if not entirely avoided ? 

A. War and bloodshed will be diminished by the 
familiarity with the fact, that the fumes of blood that 
has been spilt attach themselves to the slayer or 
slayers, and harm them in the Beyond, in spite of a 
million absolutions, pardons or indulgences. 

80. Q. How may the evil committed by mortals 
of the earth-bound class be diminished ? 

A. Mortals of the earth-bound soul should be 
well taken care of, to be able to improve during their 
life in the form. Separate camps, of large areas, 
well-guarded and well-equipped, should be set aside 
for them, to prevent them from. coming in contact 
with the outside world. 



Questions and Answers 251 

81. Q. Why are some persons afraid to meet re- 
turning souls ? 

A. Some persons fear to meet a returning soul 
because they are cowards by nature ; others, because 
their conscience keeps them away ; others again be- 
cause they are indifferent to what happens to the 
individual after death. 

82. Q. Since earth-sphere souls, i. e., the ma- 
jority of departed souls, are blind, and move about 
using their spirit-eyes, how are they aware of objects 
at a distance ? 

A. Earth-sphere souls are not aware of objects 
at a distance. They have no knowledge of matters 
and things except those things in current touch with 
them. They never see the sun or moon ; they are 
not aware of the presence of mountains, rivers or 
railway tracks unless they are close upon them or 
in the aura of a medium or mediumistic person that 
is harmonious to them. When a disembodied soul is 
in such a harmonious aura it can see within the 
extent of the aura. 

83. Q- Why do dying persons sometimes see 
the faces of departed friends or loved ones ? 

A. Dying persons sometimes become clairvoyant, 
owing to the fact that in such cases the spirit-eyes of 
the soul about to depart have become more inde- 
pendent, able to behold condensed ether entities in a 
mediumistic aura, which aura is either that of the 
dying person or of some other mortal. 

84. Q. How comes it that the approaching 



252 Soul-Return 



death of a person is sometimes announced to a dis- 
tant friend or relative in a way different from the 
ordinary ? 

A. The approaching death of a person is some- 
times announced to a friend or relative by means of 
raps, speech or other psychic phenomena. Such 
manifestations occur only when the friend or relative 
is a member of the battery. They are produced 
through currents operated not by the departing soul 
but by some other member of the battery present. 

85. Q. What does it mean when raps and other 
noises are heard in a building constantly ? 

A. Raps and other psychic manifestations con- 
tinuously heard in some part of a building mean, 
that physical souls are performing labor in a medium- 
istic aura or in remnants of mediumistic currents. 
Every such rap or other manifestation is work done 
by a departed soul, and helps this soul in its pro- 
gression. 

86. Q. Is it true that graveyards swarm with 
departed souls ? 

A. Graveyards are the natural homes of many 
crude-physical departed souls. They are held to 
their bodies by physico-psychic currents, which in 
the case of lower-class souls are not easily torn, but 
subsist for some time after transition, still attracting 
the soul to the body under ground. Cremation of 
their bodies would benefit such souls. 

87. Q. Since a disembodied soul has no arms or 
limbs, why, when it is visible to a clairvoyant, may 



Questions and Answers 253 

the soul appear as a complete human being, the per- 
fect counterpart of human life ? 

A. Disembodied souls using their condensing 
powers may create their own arms and limbs, such as 
they had when living in their incarnated state. 
More than that : They may change their soul-face 
into a face resembling their last incarnated face. 
They do these things by virtue of their soul-powers, 
one of which is the power of condensation. 

88. Q. Where is the most essential and im- 
portant part of the human soul situated ? 

A. The most important part of the soul is the 
aura. It protects the inner parts of the soul, and is 
the exponent of the entire system. The human soul 
is not a lump, figure or kernel in a nutshell. It is a 
complex entity, composed of many parts, each of 
which is essential to the whole. Particular currents 
hold these different parts together, and make them 
sympathetic to one another. 

The various parts of the body are condensed or 
materialized portions of their respective ether parts. 

The conglomeration of different parts of the soul 
is very strange. For example, what relation has the 
oesophagus to the heart ? None. What relation 
has the lung to the brain ? None. Yet these organs 
are important ether portions of the soul. The brain- 
aura serves to furnish material for steering the 
whole ; the remaining organs serve for the main- 
tenance of the body, the soul-body or the material 
body as the case may be. Now the real ego, the part 



254 Soul-Retuin 



that steers the whole and determines the character 
and nature of the soul, are certain non-material- 
ized central organs, which require no materialization 
because in a certain sense they are independent 
of the brain or brain-aura, and of all the other 
organs. To describe these central organs would 
require a separate book, and necessitate the descrip- 
tion of currents utterly non-describable to the scien- 
tific reader. They are situated between the brain 
and the generative organ. They are intimately 
connected with the aura. To mortals, a knowledge 
of the aura and its functions must for the present 
suffice. 

89. Q. When a person is in the hypnotic state, 
is the central portion of the soul affected ? 

A. The central portion of the soul is never 
affected by hypnosis. 

90. Q. What is the effect of the use of tobacco 
upon the soul after transition ? 

A. The use of tobacco harms the soul after transi- 
tion in this way : The tobacco fumes — not the smoke 
— enter the aura-tissue and produce there a set of 
currents which interfere with certain magnetic currents 
in the aura. After transition the aura is not as strong 
as it should be, owing to the fact that it must waste 
force on neutralizing the tobacco currents. 

To seance-goers it is no secret, that women, being 
non-smokers, ^ are stronger when appearing material- 
ized, that is, they manifest with more force than most 



Questions and Answers 255 

men-souls. This difference is owing to the weakening 
effect of tobacco currents in the male aura. 

91. Q. Do alcoholic beverages harm the soul in 
its progression after transition ? 

A. Alcoholic beverages harm the soul in its pro- 
gression after death in this way : Alcohol, like 
tobacco, is an organic compound. As such it has 
invisible fumes, which mingle with the tissue of the 
aura. This mixture generates currents ; in the case 
of alcohol very crude electric currents which en- 
feeble the aura after transition, because the aura 
must waste force or energy to neutralize the alcoholic 
currents. 

92. Q. How comes it that tobacco and alcohol 
fumes remain in the aura after death ? 

A. The fumes of tobacco and alcohol, after once 
entering the human aura, are converted partly into 
electric ether currents, partly into other kinds of cur- 
rents. They combine more or less intimately with 
the aura-tissue, and thereafter form an integral por- 
tion of it. In nature nothing is lost. The currents 
of organic fumes are among the most lasting tissues. 
Coarse food causes similar existing, damaging condi- 
tions of aura-tissue. 

93- Q- Why does pure love benefit the human 
soul ? 

A. Pure love benefits the human soul, because it 
engages the soul-body. It affects the brain and other 
organs indirectly. It stimulates the non-materialized 



256 Soul-Return 



soul-portion, and thereby affects the entire system, in- 
cluding the psychic part of the ego and the aura. 

We have observed the aura of mortals that love 
with their soul, not with their senses ; notably do we 
remember the soul of a woman who loved like a 
divine soul, that is, with the soul-body, and with noth- 
ing else. She was a highly-developed soul. Her 
aura shone in a brighter tint ; its motions were 
slightly accelerated ; its depth was steadily increas- 
ing. 

94. Q. Why is the human soul precious ? 

A. We are not acquainted with the reason why 
the human soul is precious ; but we know that it is a 
psychic not a physical entity. This makes it an 
organism of a high order. Besides, its progression 
is a wonderful evolution from a very dark, crude ether 
body. 

95. Q. Why is human life precious ? 

A. Human life is precious, because on this globe 
nature's all-important task is the maintenance and 
progression of the human soul in a human body. 
Whoever destroys or tends to destroy the human 
body violates her law. The slayer of mankind, the 
miser, the rich, the false teacher, the bellicose orator, 
the thief, the liar, suffer in the Beyond in proportion 
to the damage their life has inflicted upon the lives of 
their incarnated fellow souls. 

96. Q. Why is the night-time most favorable to 
the labors of departed souls on terra firma ? 



Questions and Answers 257 

A. The night-time is most favorable to the earth- 
labors of departed souls on terra firma, because light- 
rays exert a dissolving effect on condensed ether 
entities. The human body, the animal body, and the 
plant are protected from dissolving influences in the 
daytime by the constant effect of nutrition, which sup- 
plies waste-tissues and neutralizes dissolving currents. 

97- Q- What effect upon a mortal has his com- 
munion with a departed friend or loved one ? 

A. The effect of the communion carried on by a 
mortal with a departed friend or loved one is above 
all beneficial to the mortal's health. He will be told 
what to abstain from in the way of eatables that are 
difficult for him to assimilate. No two human beings 
assimilate the same kind of food with the same ease. 
In that as in many other important matters every 
mortal has his personal equation. Medical science 
does not, cannot, individualize ; in the adjustment of 
personal peculiarities, therefore, it is utterly helpless. 
The mortal will receive suggestion specially adapted 
to his case, modified by his past life, and wherever 
possible, modifying past habits. His daily dress, 
habits of exercise, choice of companions will be dis- 
cussed. He will learn from his unseen friends 
whether his meals are prepared in a careful or care- 
less manner; whether the ways of the cuisine are 
clean ways. 

In the next place, he will be told who are his 
friends ; what they will be in a hundred years hence ; 



258 Soul-Return 



whether he is liked by one, loved by another, hated 
by still another, or an object of complete indifference 
with a fourth. Friends still in the flesh sometimes 
simulate friendship. 

98. Q. Can a person become so proficient in the 
communication with departed friends and loved ones 
as to be permanently benefited ? Can he outgrow 
the fraud-period every investigator is exposed to ? 

A. Every person can become so proficient in the 
practice of communicating with some one or two 
departed friends or loved ones, except the persons so 
unfortunate as to be earth-bound souls. The reason 
of this exception lies in the fact, that scarcely any one 
among the better class of departed souls would care to 
approach an earth-bound soul. Close proximity to 
such an aura, whether it is that of a mortal or a dis- 
embodied soul, tends to spoil one's aura-tissue. 

Of course, proficiency is based upon patient labor, 
extending over at least a year. In this world a mor- 
tal obtains nothing that will be of permanent value in 
the Beyond without laboring for it. 

99. Q. Since earth-life means soul-life in a form, 
for the purpose of soul-improvement, how come about 
ten per cent of the entire population of this globe to 
be developed souls ? Why were they incarnated ? 

A. About ten per cent of developed souls and 
such as are nearly developed are incarnated in order 
that their lives may benefit the remaining ninety per 
cent. They are martyrs to a great cause. 



Questions and Answers 259 

100. Q. Why may creeds and sects be called 
artificial systems ? 

A. Creeds and sects may be called artificial sys- 
tems, because they are not based upon facts of the 
psychic part of nature, but upon productions of 
human brains ; that is, brain-aura currents. Now 
brain-aura currents are facts of psychic nature only in 
so far as their existence goes ; they are not founded 
upon any set of psychic facts. 

10 1. Q. Why are earthy, physical souls in 
human garb disposed to criticise and ridicule mat- 
ters that are above the material plane of life ? 

A. Earthy, physical mortals criticise anything that 
transcends the material plane of life, because their 
aura is coarse, and their brain-aura currents, i. e., 
thoughts, are coarse, that is, devoted solely to material 
things. But such thoughts are physically strong; 
they repel or crush more attenuated, refined currents. 

102. Q. After the transition of a crude-physical 
soul, and during his magnetic sleep, who, if any one, 
stands guard over it ? 

A. After the transition of a crude-physical soul, 
and during its magnetic sleep, some loved one stays 
with it, or engages a friend to stay with it until it is 
in a stable position, except in cases of earth-bound or 
otherwise abnormally coarse souls. The loved one 
must be relieved at least every four or five hours by 
some generous soul that lends its services for that 
labor. The watch is necessary until the sleeping soul 



260 Soul-Return 



awakens, to protect it against evil-disposed souls 
which the Beyond, i. e., the lowest sphere near the 
earth's surface, contains in great numbers. 

(Other volumes of this writer explain this danger 
more fully.) 

io 3- Q« What, if any, information has a soul of 
its impending condensation and incarnation ? 

A. Souls receive no information of their impend- 
ing condensation for incarnation. A divine soul that 
makes a specialty of this kind of work, condenses the 
soul into the size of about a walnut ; another divine 
soul takes it and plants it in any convenient " garden- 
spot," where it grows into an ego and in due time be- 
holds what in common parlance is called the light of 
day. The process is one of the innumerable mys- 
teries of nature. 

104. Q. When may the psychic decay of a 
nation begin ? 

A. The psychic decay of a nation may begin a 
century before the dawn of its material decline. The 
decline may be at its height, yet the country still 
revel in opulence, brains, pig-iron, pigs and bubbles. 
The psychic decline of a nation is a process of ether 
decomposition, which, once begun, remains in con- 
tinuous operation. The ether vibrations known as 
light rays from the Polar star are to-day the same as 
they were thousands of years ago ; the psychic de- 
cline of Rome began shortly before the First Punic 
War was still active ; wars, expansion, imperialism. 



Questions and Answers 261 

papal Christianity could not check it. Unlike the 
blessings of medical science the blessings of ether are 
still occult, as occult as were Therapeutics five 
thousand years ago. 

105. Q. What is meant by genuine prayer? 

A. Genuine prayer is an appeal to one or more 
divine souls for particular currents. It is distin- 
guished from ordinary or common prayer in this that 
the latter does not land anywhere; it merely stirs 
the air about the place of prayer. 

106. Q. Why does common prayer land no- 
where ? 

A. Common prayer lands nowhere because it 
does not go anywhere. 

107. Q. How is the common prayer prayed ? 

A. Common prayer is prayed by the brain and 
the brain-aura. 

108. Q. How is genuine prayer prayed ? 
A. Genuine prayer is prayed by the soul. 

109. Q. What is the earliest age at which a 
young person may begin to practise genuine prayer ? 

A. About seven years. 

1 10. Q. Who said that the Lord's Prayer was 
given Jesus by way of Inspiration ? 

A. The soul that gave the Lord's Prayer to Jesus 
by way of Inspiration was Zoroaster. The authors of 
this book have heard him state it. 

in. Q. Where was Zoroaster when Jesus was 
crucified ? 



262 Soul-Return 



A. During the crucifixion of Jesus, Zoroaster was 
close to him. 

112. Q. If Zoroaster was so close, why did he 
not save him ? 

A. Zoroaster could not save Jesus, because the 
conditions of Jesus' s aura at that time were unfavor- 
able to the work of divine souls. 

113. Q. Can a sick person practise genuine prayer? 
A. Sick persons are able to practise genuine 

prayer, generally speaking ; but there are cases where 
sick persons are unable to practise it. This depends 
upon the condition of their body-currents. 

114. Q. Why is it necessary at a seance that the 
members have their feet uncrossed, that is, flat upon 
the floor ? And why does the practice of genuine 
prayer require the same position ? 

A. Every member of a seance, and he that prac- 
tises genuine prayer, must sit with feet uncrossed, 
that is, his feet flat upon the floor, because in such a 
position the feet receive from the earth the greatest 
quantity of the needed fluid, which is often called 
electric. This fluid mingles with the main current 
of the battery, and contributes to the production of 
phenomena. 

115. Q. Why is it at some seances necessary for 
the sitters to join hands ? 

A. The sitters should join hands whenever the 
main current is weak. The chain of elements in- 
creases the quantity of current. 



Questions and Answers 263 

116. Q. Why cannot everybody obtain messages 
or communications from departed souls ? 

A. Only those can get messages or communica- 
tions from departed souls whose aura possesses the 
property requisite for receiving them. Similarly, 
only a wire connected with a battery can receive and 
pass a telegram. So the human aura, to be the re- 
cipient and bearer of a message from the Beyond, 
must possess electric properties, which the ordinary 
aura does not possess. 

Whatever message or communication one mortal 
receives from another in the common every-day opera- 
tions and transactions between persons, is possible 
only through the agency of currents which in one 
way or the other enable a person to think, speak and 
hear. Man must accustom himself to consider his 
daily transactions and operations the results of cur- 
rents. 

117. Q. How does a divine soul inspire the mor- 
tal that is called a genius ? 

A. A genius is inspired by a divine soul in this 
way : The divine soul accompanied by a number of 
other divine souls of a less-developed rank, by a large 
number of developed seventh-sphere souls, and a num- 
ber of good physical souls, arrive in the aura of the 
genius. The divine soul issues forth its thoughts 
and produces pictures of them, which are perceived by 
the other divine souls. These souls then reproduce 
the pictures, at times amplifying them ; after which 



264 Soul-Return 



they are fully perceived by the seventh-sphere souls. 
Then the seventh-sphere soul most harmonious to the 
mortal, reinforced by physical currents, impresses the 
new pictures upon such portions of the mortal brain 
as lead direct to the cells or nerve-centres that com- 
municate with the channels through which writing is 
performed, if writing is the work of the genius, or to 
the vocal chords if speaking is his work. The cur- 
rents select the channel that affords the least re- 
sistance. The difference, therefore, between an 
inspirational writer and an inspirational speaker lies 
in the construction of the communicating channel. 

If the gifted mortal's aura is so connected with the 
auditory apparatus that the combination of aura with 
the apparatus produces what is called a musical 
genius, the melodies — not the harmonies — are 
given by the inspiring divine soul in the same way, 
but are led along the channel last referred to. Most 
such composers first hum the inspired melody ere 
they transpose it on paper. 

In similar ways other arts are given expression by 
the inspirational phase of mediumship. 

118. Q. How does a departed soul impress a 
mediumistic person ? 

A. A mediumistic person is impressed by the act 
of a departed soul in this way : The impressing soul, 
having sufficient physical currents, impresses its 
thought upon the gifted mortal's brain. The brain 
takes it up, and mingles it with any harmonious 



Questions and Answers 265 

affiliated brain-currents, whereby the thought is modi- 
fied, amplified, transformed or otherwise changed. 
Then the new thought impresses itself upon the brain 
a second time, this time in a more distinct and intense 
manner, so that the mortal is imbued with the idea 
that the impression is original with him. It then 
passes along one of the several channels referred to 
in the previous Answer, according to the special cur- 
rents of the individual being on literary, musical or 
other artistic lines. 

The more refined the ether of the impressing soul, 
the higher the nature of the impressions. 

119. Q. How does a musical composer get the 
harmonies to his melodies ; and how does a writer 
obtain descriptions ? 

A. The harmonies in a composition are the work 
of the composer's brain and brain-aura ; similarly, the 
descriptions, dialogues and other incidentals of a lit- 
erary production come from the brain and brain-aura 
of the writer. 

120. Q. Can a person of crude-physical soul be 
made to understand his psychic condition ? 

A. A person of crude-physical soul can be made 
to understand his psychic condition when he awakens 
from his magnetic sleep in the Beyond ; seldom before. 

121. Q. How is the brain of an ordinary busi- 
ness mortal impressed and by what class of souls ? 

A. The ordinary business mortal, unless medium- 
istic, is impressed by souls of the earth-spheres. He 



266 Soul-Return 



that is at the mercy of more than one soul, or of a few 
souls that impress him successively or alternately 
according to their and his temporary condition and 
harmony, is of a vacillating character, ever amending 
his plans and methods. In the course of a month a 
hundred impressing souls may have had access to his 
aura. If he practises genuine prayer he will be saved 
the ordeal and disgrace resulting from such a state of 
mind, because in that case his aura will be rendered 
strong enough to resist so great a diversity of currents. 

122. Q. When is a medium fully developed ? 
A. A medium is never fully developed. 

123. Q. How may one know the length of the 
radius of a medium's aura ? 

A. The length of the radius of a medium's aura 
may be known from the distance at which the me- 
dium's controls are able to read inscriptions on rail- 
way cars, houses, signboards and the like. 

124. Q. When will the earth be depopulated ? 

A. The earth will be depopulated after the transi- 
tion of the last surviving mortal. The precise time of 
this event is impossible to tell. 

125. Q. When will the next installment of tenth- 
sphere souls leave this planet for Jupiter and Saturn ? 

A. The next installment of tenth-sphere souls will 
leave this planet for Jupiter and Saturn sometime 
within this century. 

126. Q. Will Jesus of Nazareth be among those 
that will leave the earth during this century ? 



Questions and Answers 267 

A. He is one of the tenth-sphere souls that will 
leave the earth for planet Jupiter during this century. 

127. Q. If a tenth-sphere soul that shall leave 
the earth in this century has a loved one in the tenth 
sphere that is not among those that are going to 
leave with him, will that soul depart alone ? 

A. A tenth-sphere soul ripe for exchange of 
planet will leave his unripe loved one behind. The 
loved one may follow with the next installment, but 
may not go to the same planet. In such a case there 
is a separation apparently final. Whether it is final or 
not we cannot say. 

128. Q. Who tells tenth-sphere souls when to 
leave the earth ? 

A. Nature's forces ; the same forces, but of a 
higher grade, that tell the young chicken to leave the 

egg. 

129. Q. Do departed souls enjoy worldly pleas- 
ures such as theatres, concerts, lectures and the 
like ? 

A. Yes ; and they read whenever they have an 
opportunity, within a harmonious mediumistic aura on 
terra firma. They cultivate the arts and sciences. 
They develop their knowledge along with their soul. 

(More concerning this may be gathered from other 
volumes written through this instrument.) 

130. Q. Who is the greatest and most honored 
of the oldest souls of the tenth sphere ? 

A. Yarmen, of the sunken Atlantis. 



268 Soul-Return 



131. Q. Could Yarmen give an account of the 
catastrophe that befell that island ? 

A. Yarmen could give a full account of the sud- 
den collapse and sinking of that island, through an 
automatic-writing instrument. But his pictures re- 
quire an enormous quantity of force. The quantity 
of force might be gathered for the purpose, but the 
purpose is not one for which the strength of this in- 
strument should be sacrificed. Things more necessary 
have been, and still are to be, written through this 
instrument. 

132. Q. Which of the arts is best liked by de- 
parted souls ? 

A. Both the earth-sphere souls and the divine 
souls prefer music, especially instrumental music, to 
any of the other arts. In part this is attributable to 
the aid which music affords to their progression. 

I 33- Q- What occupation for man do departed 
souls prefer ? 

A. All departed souls, without distinction of 
grade or sphere, like for a man to devote himself 
to agriculture. 

134. Q. What occupation do departed souls 
like women to follow ? 

A. All departed souls, except the earth-bound 
class, like woman to follow the occupation of 
motherhood. 



Index 



Alba, Duke of 28 

Aura 20 

Aura, Depth 22 

Aura, Divine 194 

Aura, Functions 24 

Aura, Mediumistic . 44 

Authors of this Book 61 

Automatic Writing 59 

Bands, for Materialization 74 

Bands, Tenth Sphere 195 

Battery . 67, 11 1, 113 

Beethoven 91 

Blood 103 

Bloodshed 175 

Body-Organs 33> %° 

Brain 148 

Brain-Aura 21, 65, 144 

Brain-Traces 144 

Character, Human 131 

Charlemagne 176 

Clairvoyant 13, 101 

Color 64 

Communications from Ancient Soul .... 104 

Conclusion 214 

Condensation 47, 81 

Conscience 96 

Contents, Table of 4 

Controls 84, 117 

Crude-Physical 45, 125-7 

Currents, Electric 34 

269 



270 Index 



Currents, Magnetic 34 

Currents, Power of 165 

Currents . 144 

Decay of Nations 166 

Dematerialization 65 

Detection of Crude-Physical Souls . . . .172 

Detection of Earth-Bound Souls 173 

Development of Soul 51 

Developed Souls . . . . . . . 28, 29 

Divine Souls 189 

Divine Spheres . 188 

Earth-Bound Souls 173 

Earth-Spheres . 31 

Egos, Six . . . . . . . . . 138 

Eighth -Sphere Souls 190 

Eighth-Sphere Activities 1 90-3 

Equation of Life 174 

Ether . . . 64, 165 

Ether, Two Properties of 47 

Etherealization 13, 80 

Fraud, Different Kinds no, 115 

Fraud, Psychic 109 

Gravity . . . . . ... . . 56 

Harmonies 204 

Human Character . ... ... . . 131 

Imagination . . 180 

Impression . . .90 

Impression, General 95 

Incarnation . ... 23, 32, 48, 51, 78, 219 

Individualism . 154, 219 

Inspiration . ........ 89 



Index 271 



Instruction and Currents 144 

Introductory Remarks ........ 9 

Jesus 118, 124, 162 

Lessing 159 

Levitation 54 

Light Rays 76 

Light Difficulty . . .77 

Lincoln, Abraham 156 

Locating Phase * . . 97 

Longfellow 91 

Luminosity 200 

Mahomet 118 

Marriages 210 

Materialization 13, 66 

Materialized Souls, Activities 80 

Mind 179 

Mozart 89 

Napoleon I 28 

Nero 28 

Ninth-Sphere Souls 193 

Ninth-Sphere Activities ...... 193-4 

Obstacles to Soul-Communion 158 

One, Nature's Number 197 

Organ-Aura 20, 33 

Organic Life, Defined 23 

Other Worlds !07 

Philip II of Spain 28 

Physical, Necessary I2 4 

Physical Souls \ .28 

Physical Manifestations 07 

Population of Earth X rr 



272 Index 



Prayer, Genuine 159, 165 

Progression of Soul 31, 156 

Progress of Mankind 219 

Psychic Fraud 109, 115 

Psychometric Phase .94 

Purpose of Life 29, 30 

Questions and Answers 222 

Raps 56 

Raphael 89 

Retention of Soul in Body . . . . . 33 

Shakespeare .90 

Schopenhauer 70 

Scientific Branches 147 

Seance after Death .40 

Seers 92 

Sex-Passion 139 

Slate -Writing 57 

Sleep, Magnetic . 37 

Soul, Currents 23 

Soul, Defined 20 

Soul and Body Held Together 33 

Soul-Labor 43 

Soul, the Magnetic in Man 23 

Soul, Physical . . . ... . . .122 

Soul-Return 54 

Soul, Structure of 47 

Soul, Task of . 157, 200 

Soul, Will of 50 

Substitution 73 

Table-Tipping 102 

Tennyson 91 

Tenth-Sphere Souls 194 

Tenth-Sphere Activities ; . . . . . .194 



Index 273 



Tests ■ 71 

Tests, Scientific, of Soul 82 

Thought 129 

Trance-Phase 84 

Transfiguration 73 

Transition ... 36 



NOV 2 1903 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1606S 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





013 523 172 1 



